Half of Californians With No Plan to Vaccinate Are Still Making Plans to Mingle

About 12% of Southern Californians said last spring they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine, and about half of that group said they socialized with people outside their household, according to UCLA’s California Health Interview Survey.

In response to the rising case rate, the school released early sample results of 5,500 Californians who were surveyed in March and April of this year.

Policymakers and public health officials need to keep the survey's finding in mind, said UCLA Center for Health Policy Research Director Ninez Ponce.

“The people that are not likely to get vaccinated are the ones that are not following these [public health safety] guidelines,” she said.

The highest reported level of vaccine hesitancy was around 20%, in the San Joaquin Valley and northern Sierra counties, Ponce said.

In L.A. County, 88% reported wearing face coverings, slightly higher than 84% in the rest of Southern California. As for social distancing, it was 63% percent in L.A. County and 51% outside the area.

When it came to socializing with people they didn’t live with, 44% in L.A. said they were hanging out, considerably less than the rest of the region's 58%, but Ponce said a good portion of those respondents had already received their first shot by March and April.

Generally, people said followed some, if not all, public health guidelines when they chose to socialize — wearing masks, socially distancing, and not sharing food.

But across the state, about 20% of respondents said they either sometimes, or never, followed those rules when they gathered with others from outside their household.

All this data is available online as an interactive dashboard.