Comparing the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines

New data from SurveyMonkey and Outbreaks Near Me

Hello from SurveyMonkey!

This week, we’re sharing our latest data on vaccine hesitancy, focusing on different perceptions of the three different vaccines that are currently available in the U.S. With a potential fourth vaccine from AstraZeneca facing increased scrutiny, ensuring public confidence in the current vaccines will be incredibly important as vaccines continue to become available to more individuals. 

In the latest weekly update from SurveyMonkey and Outbreaks Near Me, 34.1% of adults in the U.S. report having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Among those who have been vaccinated, 47% have received the Pfizer vaccine, 46% have received the Moderna vaccine, and 4% have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

Among those who have not yet been vaccinated, many remain hesitant: just 51% say they would get it if offered to them, 22% say they would not, and 27% say they are not sure, according to surveys from the past two weeks. Partisanship is still a main driver of vaccine hesitancy, with Democrats much more likely than Republicans and independents to say they are willing to get vaccinated.

Most people who are eager to get vaccinated are relatively brand-agnostic: 66% would be willing to get the Moderna vaccine, 70% are willing to get the Pfizer vaccine, and 67% are willing to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

But among those who are “not sure” whether they want to get vaccinated, more say they are willing to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (34%) than either the Moderna (22%) or Pfizer (24%) vaccines. 

That’s a critical piece of information for public health officials trying to convince a big segment of the population to get vaccinated, and it’s true for all subgroups by race, age, party, etc. More people who are hesitant to get vaccinated are willing to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine than the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. 

While the three vaccines have many differences—number of shots required, storage requirements, etc.—they all so far have few differences in outcomes. A huge majority of people who have been vaccinated (84%) say they would be “very likely” to recommend that others get the COVID-19 vaccine, and there is no difference in that recommendation by the brand of vaccine received. 

By far the most common side effect for all three vaccines is “pain in the arm where I received the vaccine,” reported by 87% of those who got the Moderna vaccine, 85% of those who got the Pfizer vaccine, and 68% of those who got the Johnson &  Johnson vaccine. 

Tiredness,  headache, chills, swelling, and fever are all reported much less frequently, with Pfizer vaccine recipients often the least likely to report these less-frequent side effects. 

More COVID-19 polling from SurveyMonkey

A CNBC|SurveyMonkey poll released for International Women’s Day earlier this month finds that women’s career ambitions have taken a hit due to the pandemic: 

“In fact, 65% of working women believe the pandemic has made things worse for women at work, according to CNBC and SurveyMonkey’s new Women at Work survey. Of the more than 3,600 women participants, more than half said they feel burned out at least some of the time and more than a third said they’ve thought about quitting their job over the past year.”

Read more from CNBC.

Zoom and SurveyMonkey teamed up to ask workers across the U.S. how they’ve adapted to the changing nature of work this past year, and what they see looking ahead: 

“Our research shows that two-thirds of workers who have been working from home this year (65%) say their ideal choice for a future work setup is one in which they could work both from home and from the office, evenly split between 33% preferring to work mostly from the office and 32% preferring to work mostly from home.” 

Read more in Forbes.

That’s all for this update! Thanks for reading and following along with us.