JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee declared the rapid worldwide spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) a global health emergency. By December 2020, the safety and efficacy of the first COVID-19 vaccines had been demonstrated. However, global vaccination coverage rates have remained below expectations. Mandatory vaccination is now being controversially discussed and has been enacted in some developed countries, while the vaccination rate is very low in many developing countries. We used the Twitter survey system as a viable method to quickly and comprehensively gather international public health insights on mandatory vaccination against COVID-19.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to understand better the public's perception of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in real-time utilizing Twitter polls.

Methods:

Two Twitter polls were developed to seek the public's opinion on the possibility of mandatory vaccination. The polls were pinned to the Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform's Twitter timeline for one week in mid-November 2021, three days after the official public announcement of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in Austria. Twitter users were asked to participate and retweet the polls to reach the largest possible audience.

Results:

Our Twitter polls revealed two extremes on the topic of mandatory vaccination against COVID-19. Almost half of the respondents (49% [1,246/2,545]) favour mandatory vaccination, at least in certain areas. This attitude is in contrast to the 45.7% (1,162/2,545) who categorically reject mandatory vaccination. 26.3% (621/2,365) of participating Twitter users said they would never get vaccinated, which is reflected by the current vaccination coverage rate. Concatenating interpretation of these two polls needs to be done cautiously as participating populations might greatly differ.

Conclusions:

Mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 (in at least certain areas) is favoured by less than 50%, whereas it is vehemently opposed by almost half of the surveyed Twitter users. Since (social) media strongly influences public perceptions and views through and social media discussions and surveys specifically susceptible to the "echo chamber effect", the results can be seen as a momentary snapshot. Therefore, the results of this study need to be complemented by long-term surveys to maintain their validity.