Country-of-Origin Bias towards COVID-19 Vaccination: Evidence from Turkey

Abstract

Abstract Rapid vaccination against COVID-19 is viewed to be the only way to exit the current pandemic. In addition to the difficulties in the production and global distribution of the vaccines, one major barrier behind this is the vaccine hesitancy, particularly biases toward vaccines of different countries of origin among the public. We conducted a cross-sectional vignette study and designed five online surveys, where the participants were given some information about the efficacy of vaccines from different countries of origin. We then used standard mean comparison tests and (ordered) logistic regressions to provide evidence for the country-of-origin bias of the COVID-19 vaccines. 1615 participants answered our five surveys. Even though the two vaccines are reported to have the same efficacy, participants' subjective evaluation of the vaccine's efficacy and their willingness to get vaccinated is significantly higher when the vaccine is from Germany rather than from China.