The majority of reluctant respondents believed there was no need for the COVID-19 vaccine and the second most common reason was concern about the safety of the vaccine. New developments in the COVID-19 vaccination towards the end of 2020 have raised concerns about the procurement, logistics and acceptability of the vaccine itself, among other plausible challenges. We have included the dates of the reports in parentheses next to the year for ease of following vaccine news updates.
One thousand people registered on the first day of the launch of the official website for COVID-19 vaccine registration, surokkha. The report also said that 541 people, including 296 doctors, had immunized themselves on the first day of the vaccination trial. Moreover, the report also talked about the changes made by the GoB in terms of age floor in the first phase, lowering it to 40 years, to improve the pace of the vaccination programme.
The Bangladeshi prime minister received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on March 4, 2021 ("PM Hasina receives her first shot of COVID-19 vaccine," 2021, March 4).
The Role of Governance in Willingness to Be Vaccinated
Descriptive Analysis
Overall, 47% of respondents do not perceive vaccines as a necessity, followed by vaccine distrust (31%), concerns about effectiveness (29%) and fear of side effects (28%). We further checked whether there are any significant responses in the reasons given by those who definitely do not want and those who probably do not want. In the following subsections, we analyze WTV from four broad dimensions: regional, demographic, general COVID-19 factors, and management-related COVID-19 factors.
We then present our regression results for WTV on those significant variables in the econometric analysis section. The WTV (definite and likely) is significantly higher in the rural areas at 84%, in contrast to 78% willingness among the urban respondents, as shown in Figure 3.2. There were no significant differences in the reasons for not wanting to vaccinate by location.
Descriptive data also support this: those who prefer no lockdown in the rural sample are more willing to be vaccinated (79% definitely or probably willing) than their urban counterparts (68%% definitely or probably willing), despite this positive trend. Sixty-eight percent of respondents believed that there were some irregularities in the distribution of aid. The rural-urban split was almost symmetrical, except that a higher proportion of respondents in the rural region said they did not know (9% in rural areas versus 4% in urban areas) and a higher proportion of urban residents thought there were irregularities were in play (66% in rural areas versus 73% in urban areas).
There was no irregularity in the distribution of aid (n = 371). There were some irregularities in the distribution. Respondents in the rural region reported that they do not know more (4% in rural areas vs. 2% in urban areas), while those in the urban area reported that it was not very effective (5% in rural areas vs. 8% in urban areas) . . In Figure 3.9 we see that as the level of perceived effectiveness decreases, the WTV decreases. The decline is much larger in the urban sample compared to the rural sample (not shown), which is expected given a slightly larger correlation coefficient for the urban sample in the table. C1.
Empirical Analysis
Seventy-six percent of respondents are very or moderately confident that the COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed efficiently in Bangladesh. In Figure 3.10 there is a significant positive relationship between the level of trust and WTV, but the increase in WTV in the cities due to higher trust is lower than the increase in rural areas, as also shown by the smaller urban correlation coefficient in Table C1. In Model 1, an increase in perceived health risk for oneself significantly increases the probability of definitely not wanting and definitely willing by 1.7% and 4.7%, respectively, and decreases the probability of others.
This reflects the significant variation in opinions we noted above for this variable. Increases in the desired severity of the lockdown, the perceived effectiveness of the GoB's response to COVID-19 crisis management and confidence in the efficiency of vaccine distribution significantly improve the probability of final readiness by an average of 11.35%, respectively, but reduce the chance of other consequences. outcomes. So it can be said that greater trust and satisfaction in COVID-19 governance have a positive effect on the willingness to definitely get vaccinated.
Greater preference for lockdown stringency, perceived effectiveness of the GoB's response to the COVID-19 crisis management, and confidence in vaccine distribution effectiveness improve the probability of definitive willingness by 8.6%, respectively—which is very similar to Model 1.
Youth and Willingness to Be Vaccinated
Willingness to Be Vaccinated The WTV over time had decreased among
Perceptions Regarding the Vaccine Distribution System in Bangladesh
State of the Willingness to Be Vaccinated in Urban Slums
Willingness to Be Vaccinated Overall, in February 2021, WTV (definitely
Unwilling urban slum respondents, sure or sure, were asked to state reasons for their reluctance, same as in section 3.1. In Table 3.6, the majority of respondents (75%) believe there is no need for the COVID-19 vaccine. When compared with the reasons stated by urban respondents of the overall SOG'21 sample, it was found that a significantly higher proportion of slum respondents did not feel the need to have a vaccine.
Within the urban slum sample, there were no significant differences in the reasons by gender.
Confidence in Efficiency of COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Highlights
This chapter deals with the behavioral aspect of COVID-19 vaccination based on registration and compliance. While previous chapters dealt with expressed behavior, this one looks at the realized behavior and other practical issues related to the vaccination process. The organization of the chapter can be broadly divided into the analysis of the following: registration knowledge, registration action, compliance and potential intra-household spillovers.
Knowledge About COVID-19 Vaccine Registration
Regional Distribution Overall, approximately two-thirds of
Demographic Characteristics Gender
Only in urban slums is there a significant association between age groups and knowledge of the registration process. Younger and older urban slum groups showed the highest lack of knowledge compared to other age groups. There is also a statistically significant relationship between knowledge and primary occupation in both samples (see Table 4.4).
In rural areas, homemakers, day laborers, drivers or helpers, domestic helpers and the unemployed knew the least, while in urban slums this was the case for homemakers, farmers and fishermen.
Information About COVID-19 Vaccination (If Knew About
The respondents who knew were then asked about their demand for information regarding the COVID-19 vaccination. The two most common responses received were that they either did not need or were not interested, or that they wanted to know details on how to register. The former response was significantly higher among rural respondents (42% in rural areas vs. 37% in urban slums).
Other information that the respondents wanted was the place of vaccination and whether there was any fee to be paid. A much higher proportion of respondents in urban shantytowns wanted to know if they could register without an NID and if a vaccination card would be provided, than respondents in rural areas.
COVID-19 Vaccine Registration
Registration Status
In addition, in both areas relatively more men than women did not register for reasons other than women. Since we recorded responses about non-registration due to self-reported ineligibility, it is clear that many respondents aged 40 years and above in rural and urban slums chose this option. A large proportion of eligible respondents did not register for other reasons, and the percentage is higher among urban slum dwellers.
From table 4.11 we can see that in both rural and urban slum areas the registration percentage is highest among job owners, where the rural areas are higher (14%). In urban slums, this applies to homemakers, farmers and fishermen, day laborers, drivers or helpers and maids. Reasons for not registering (if eligible but not registered) We then asked respondents to state.
Reasons for Not Registering (If Eligible But Not Registered) We then asked the respondents to state
Details of the Registration Process (If Registered)
Vaccine Compliance
Compliance Rate
Reasons for Not Vaccinating (If Registered But Did Not Take the
Source of Influence to Be Vaccinated (If Vaccinated)
Potential Spillover
Head’s Registration Knowledge Table 4.18 reports a significant relationship
Head’s Registration Status
Head’s Vaccine Compliance
Highlights
With the start of the first phase of vaccination, the GoB began to implement its plan to ensure maximum COVID-19 immunization coverage, and 3.3% of the country's population received the first dose as of March 31, 2021 ( Mathieu et al., 2021). This report attempted to present a chronological narrative of developments related to the COVID-19 vaccination program in Bangladesh and highlighted underlying factors that may have played a role in the WTV of the general population in early February 2021 and the role of management in it. Finally, practical aspects of the vaccination process for the rural and urban slums were discussed in March 2021.
So far, the GoB has adapted to local developments, as evidenced by lowering the age limit to 40 years and involving teachers in the first phase (Sujan, 2021, February 10). Although supply disruptions had halted the rollout, the focus of this report is on demand-side aspects. Although our study period did not include the start of the second dose of the vaccine, which was on April 8, 2021, as previously mentioned, ensuring full or complete immunization is also important.
The measures adopted include creating awareness about the health risk of the virus and the necessity, effectiveness and safety of vaccines; Policymakers should keep both supply and demand side characteristics in mind to ensure the ultimate success of the vaccination program. The first survey is the State of Governance Bangladesh 2021 (SOG'21) survey, referred to as Feb'21 in the discussions of the report.
The SOG'21 telephone survey includes three sampling frames (out of the three existing BIGD survey samples). In the third, we used rural and urban slum samples from the third phase of the study “Living, Coping and Recovery during the COVID-19 Crisis (LS'21)” (Rahman et al., 2020). A timeline of the three surveys is shown in Figure A1, while Table A1 below summarizes the main figures.
State of Governance Bangladesh 2021 Survey The SOG’21 survey took place from 23
The urban slum sample is limited to adults who were at least 18 years of age for this report. The UDP Census (BRAC, 2018) recorded responses from the female respondents in 24,000 households from 35 slums in the country. Then the list was created with randomly selected 600 men who were heads of households in the census.
National Youth Survey 2021 In the second survey, YS’21, the sampling
Livelihoods, Coping, and Recovery During COVID-19 Crisis (Phase III)
