Nearly a third of rural family caregivers say they won't take their older relatives to get a coronavirus vaccine

"Nearly one-third of family caregivers in rural communities say they won’t take their older relatives to get a Covid vaccine, according to a new survey commissioned by SCAN Health Plan," Adam Cancryn reports for Politico. "That 31 percent is almost double the refusal rate of urban and suburban caregivers — a sign of the vaccine distrust in already isolated parts of the U.S. And that could slow the nation’s progress toward herd immunity."

The caregivers' reluctance is mostly because of safety concerns about the vaccine. More than a quarter of rural caregivers surveyed said they were "not at all" confident in the vaccine's safety, compared to 9% of their urban and suburban counterparts, Cancryn reports.

The survey's findings overlap with recent polls underlining Republicans' greater hesitance about the vacccine, as rural areas tend to be more conservative. Though overall resistance to vaccination is waning, it remains "relatively high" among Republicans, The Washington Post reports; over a third of Republicans in a recent survey said they will definitely not get vaccinated.