Survey of Attitudes on Personal Protection Interventions against COVID-19 Including MMR Vaccination and Future Anti-COVID Vaccines

An electronic survey was conducted in October, 2020 among individuals primarily age 60 and older regarding their\r\ndegree of confidence of deriving personal protection from 8 different anti-COVID interventions - social isolation,\r\nlockdowns, avoiding restaurants, taking MMR vaccine, wearing masks when indoors with others, avoiding hotels,\r\navoiding commercial air travel, and using the first future specific anti-COVID vaccine. Responses were received from\r\n135 persons from many different U.S. regions and 5 foreign countries. Respondents were generally individuals with\r\nvery high levels of education and personal achievement. Results demonstrated wide diversity of responses regarding\r\neach of these interventions. None were strongly supported by a majority of respondents, but those receiving the\r\nlargest proportions of strong support were social isolation (41%), wearing masks indoors (41%), and using the\r\nfirst anti-COVID vaccine (41%). MMR (Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccination was viewed much more positively\r\nthan negatively but had the highest proportion of individuals who felt they had insufficient data to formulate an\r\nopinion. The largest number of strong negative assessments were toward lockdowns (37%). We speculate that the\r\nwide variation in perception of possible benefits from the surveyed interventions, most of which have been widely\r\npracticed by or imposed upon millions of individuals, in this highly accomplished older population at increased\r\npersonal risk from COVID-19 reflects the current absence of rigorous scientific proof of the efficacy of any these\r\ninterventions, and the continuation of the epidemic despite the widespread utilization of most of them.