A recent poll showed 80 percent of Koreans were willing to get vaccinated against Covid-19, but 60 percent said they would wait some time to see how the vaccine works before getting the shot.

The research team of Professor You Myung-soon at the Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Health released the survey results on Thursday.

Kstat Research conducted the poll on 1,094 adults from Jan. 8 to 10.

Under the premise that experts have verified the vaccine's safety and the vaccine came for free, the survey asked them if they would get inoculated. Eighty percent of the respondents said they would, and 13.4 percent said they would not. Only 1.8 percent said they would never get the vaccination.

As for the vaccination timing, 59.9 percent said they would wait to see how the vaccine works in other people before getting it, and 37.8 percent said they would get it as soon as possible.

The respondents had a good level of trust in a Covid-19 vaccine and the domestic healthcare system.

A 75.5 percent, 65.5 percent, and 53.7 percent of respondents disagreed with the statements, “I don’t trust our country’s healthcare system,” “I don’t trust most vaccines,” and “I don’t trust the government enough to be sure that vaccines are safe and effective,” respectively.

However, not many people thought vaccines would be fairly distributed through appropriate tests.

Although 50.3 percent said they were sure that vaccines would have gone through appropriate tests, 43.6 percent said they were not.

Similarly, 50.9 percent said they were not convinced that the vaccines would be fairly distributed, whereas 43.6 percent said the opposite.

About 52 percent said the worst Covid-19 situation has yet to come, while 23.8 percent said the worst has passed.

An 81 percent of the respondents picked scientists and healthcare professionals as the most reliable people in emergency response to Covid-19, 79.8 percent, people around them, 77.1 percent, state-run medical institutions, and 73.5 percent, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

“The poll was conducted when daily new cases came down a little to around 600,” You said. “Given that many people expected a greater crisis, the results show that there is a gap between the outside situation and individuals’ subjective perception.”