Two-thirds of Toronto parents ‘certain or somewhat likely’ to get young kids vaccinated against COVID-19, survey says
TORONTO — A new survey from Statistics Canada says that the overwhelming majority of Toronto parents are “certain” or “somewhat likely” to have their young children vaccinated against the coronavirus, even as the province’s schools reopen.
In addition, the survey results, released Friday, also suggest Toronto’s overall vaccination rate is among the highest in Canada.
Those results come from an online survey of 1,000 parents of children in public and private schools, the data release said.
On a scale of 1 to 100, based on the percentage of parents strongly or somewhat likely to vaccinate their children in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the results indicate that 72.5 per cent of parents in Toronto are “certain” or “somewhat likely” to get their kids vaccinated against the virus, which caused the global pandemic.
That compares with 68.7 per cent in the Vancouver area, and 66.3 per cent in Ottawa, Statistics Canada said in a news release. In Montreal and Quebec, meanwhile, fewer than half of parents are certain or somewhat likely to vaccinate their kids.
Toronto, with 12 per cent of parents strongly or somewhat likely to vaccinate their children, has the eighth-highest vaccine coverage rate of any municipality in Canada, behind only Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres (which both have 17 per cent), according to the release.
Toronto also has the sixth-highest rate of parents who are certain or somewhat likely to vaccinate their young children, and the third-highest overall rate of parents “certain” or “somewhat likely” to get their kids vaccinated.
When asked how strongly they were willing to vaccinate their kids against the coronavirus, the survey results found that 84.9 per cent were “strongly willing” to do so, while only 7.8 per cent were “very willing” to do so.