A growing number of people around the world say they are willing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to a survey of global vaccine confidence. More than half of respondents in 15 countries said they would get immunized if they were offered the shot next week.

The survey by market research firm YouGov and Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation measured people’s attitudes toward coronavirus vaccines, including potential side effects and trust in governments to provide the shots. The survey took place from November to mid-January.

Two-thirds of people questioned said they trust the vaccines and that it was important to get vaccinated, with Italians reporting the greatest levels of trust (82 percent) followed by Britain (81 percent).

More than half of respondents said they believed that government health authorities would provide them with effective shots. One of the major exceptions was Japan, which has not yet started its immunization campaign. There, just 16 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed that government health authorities would secure and distribute an effective vaccine.

But while confidence in coronavirus vaccines has risen since November, skepticism surrounding the vaccine and potential side effects remained high.

France, for example, reported the highest share of respondents (35 percent) who said they strongly disagreed when asked if they would get the vaccine if it were offered next week. Forty percent of people surveyed in France also said they strongly agree that they are worried about vaccine side effects – but that rate decreased significantly since respondents were asked in December.

In Ukraine on Thursday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that half of the country’s 41 million people are not willing to be vaccinated. The government plans to start its vaccine rollout in mid-February.

The YouGov survey reported that a majority said it was not easy to obtain the vaccine in their respective countries, despite people’s willingness to get it.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark had the highest share of respondents who stated it would not be hard to access the vaccine. More than two-thirds of respondents in South Korea and Japan said that it would be difficult to obtain the shots.

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