Coronavirus: Almost half in NI report side-effect from vaccine - but vast majority say reaction was mild

But for the vast majority the side-effects were mild, according to the results from the ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) Opinion survey’ published on Thursday by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

The result are based on interviews carried out with members of the public in the period April 21 to April 3.

People interviewed were asked if they had received a vaccine for coronavirus and, if so, whether or not they had experienced any side effects.

Of those interviewed, 27% reported that they had received a vaccine.

Just under half of these people (47%) said that they had experienced side-effects after receiving the vaccine.

Of those people who reported experiencing side-effects, the vast majority (92%) reported describing the side effects as mild, whilst 8% described the side effects as severe.

Those people who had not received a vaccine by the time of interview, were asked a further question about how likely or unlikely they were to have a vaccine.

The vast majority of those people (91%) stated that they would be likely to have a vaccine, whilst 9% stated they would be unlikely to do so.

The most common reasons given by those people who said that they were unlikely to have a vaccine were that they were worried about the side-effects (53%), they had worries about the long term effects on their health (42%), they did not think it will be safe (34%) or they would wait to see how well the vaccine works (33%).

People interviewed asked some questions about lockdown measures and the extent to which they supported or opposed the lockdown measures which were in place at that time.

While the vast majority of people (87%) supported the lockdown measures, some 7% opposed them.

Approximately, six in ten people (59%) said that they were completely following the Northern Ireland Executive’s regulations and guidelines on how to deal with the pandemic.

During the months of January – April, people with school aged children in their household were asked about home schooling and remote learning.

Some 72% of these people agreed that the child/children in their household were continuing to learn whilst being home schooled or receiving remote learning, while 18% disagreed.

Almost two thirds (65%) agreed that home schooling or remote learning was negatively affecting the well-being of the children in their household, but almost 21% disagreed.

The proportion of people, who expected the financial position of their household to get worse in the next 12 months, was highest at the beginning of the pandemic in the months of April – June 2020 (31%) but decreased to 18% in the months of January – March 2021.