Most US employees favor workplace COVID vaccine mandates, poll finds
Most workers in the US are in favor of their company requiring all employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a recent Gallup poll.
A Gallup poll of over 1,800 employed US adults conducted between July 19 and July 26 found that 16 percent favored and 36 percent “strongly favored” their employer requiring vaccinations for all workers except those who are medically exempt.
Ten percent of participants in the survey said they neither favor nor oppose the workplace mandates.
Another 9 percent oppose the requirements and 29 percent strongly oppose them, the poll found.
The percentage of people who strongly favor requiring the shots in the office has risen since May, when the Gallup Poll first surveyed American workers about the mandates and found that 29 percent strongly favored them.
In June, the survey found that figure had risen to 33 percent before climbing to 36 percent when the question was floated again last month.
The share of people who strongly oppose the mandates has gone down slightly at the same time, from 31 percent in May to 30 percent in June and 29 percent in July.
Gallup noted that the survey happened before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued fresh guidance at the end of July warning about the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
“This guidance has led to several prominent companies delaying back-to-work plans, requiring employees to be vaccinated or requiring employees to wear face masks at work,” Gallup wrote.
Gallup also asked people whether their employer was requiring vaccinations, and found that the percentage of employees who said their company did have a mandate rose from 5 percent in May to 9 percent most recently.
Separately, Gallup conducted another poll in June of over 9,000 US workers that found that employees who were working fully remotely or hybrid were much more likely than fully on-site workers to favor company’s vaccine mandates.
Meanwhile, the survey found that fully on-site workers were almost as likely to oppose vaccination requirements, with more strongly opposed to them than strongly favoring them.
Gallup said that as of late July, 66 percent of all US workers reported they had been fully or partially vaccinated, while an additional 8 percent planned to be.
That means one in four employees did not at the time plan to get vaccinated, though some areas of the country with low vaccination rates have seen a rush to get the shots since the Delta variant sent cases spiking again.
