Two of the biggest barriers preventing Idahoans from getting vaccinated for COVID-19 are concerns about the vaccine’s safety and ease of getting time off work, according to a state-commissioned survey released Wednesday.

About 55 percent of unvaccinated Idahoans say they definitely will not get vaccinated and 19 percent say they probably won’t, which pollsters say makes them persuadable. Another 19 percent will likely get the vaccine, saying they either probably or definitely will get it.

Approximately one-third of unvaccinated people say they don’t trust the science behind the vaccine, while 29 percent say they want to “wait and see how things go.” About 68 percent of respondents said they believe it’s common for people to have “reactions or significant side effects beyond the expected soreness, fever and fatigue.” (This is not true. Severe adverse reactions are rare for the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

Safety concerns were “exacerbated immediately following the brief pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” according to a memo summarizing the survey results, written by Greg Strimple and Robert Jones, president and vice president, respectively, of GS Strategy.

About a fifth of people likely to get vaccinated say they haven’t been able to take time off work. Almost two-thirds of people who say they “definitely will get” the vaccine say trouble getting time off work is the biggest reason they haven’t been inoculated.

Pollsters say the results of the survey, conducted by Boise-based consulting firm GS Strategy on behalf of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, highlight the importance of making shots easily accessible to the almost 53 percent of unvaccinated Idahoans. Everyone age 12 and up is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Idaho.

Idaho has the eighth-lowest adult partial vaccination rate, according to CDC data on Tuesday. Slightly more than half of Idaho adults received their first vaccine by Tuesday.

“Employers should be offering time off to any employee who wants to get vaccinated but is worried about missing work,” according to a memo summarizing the survey’s findings.

State leaders use the surveys to guide public information efforts and policies in hopes of getting more residents vaccinated. Last week, Gov. Brad Little began offering state employees four hours of paid time off to get the vaccine.

“I encourage private employers to consider offering their employees the same benefit,” Little said on Twitter. “The COVID-19 vaccine is our best tool to protect jobs, strengthen our workforce, and save lives.”

GS Strategy pollsters talked to 300 unvaccinated Idahoans between June 5 and June 10. The survey has a 5.56 percent margin of error, meaning the true opinion of Idahoans could be skewed that many percentage points either above or below the survey’s results.

More than eight in 10 people surveyed said they were “not at all” worried about contracting COVID-19. Having the chance to win cash prizes through a so-called vaccine lottery wasn’t very convincing to respondents, the survey found. Addressing safety concerns and convenient access to shots “through time off work and availability at pharmacies … appears to be the better route for communications,” the memo said.

The most trusted people to deliver vaccine information are doctors, nurses and other health officials, the memo said. About 44 percent of those likely to get the vaccine and 24 percent who are persuadable say they plan to vaccinate their children before school starts. “Leveraging back to school doctor visits to promote family vaccinations could be a great opportunity to increase (vaccine) uptake rates,” the memo recommended.

Of those who are likely to get the vaccine, 23 percent said they want to wait less than one year and 15 percent said they want to wait one year; 10 percent of those who were persuadable to get the vaccine eventually said they want to wait less than one year, but another 24 percent said they wanted to wait longer.

“This means that many people will decide, in their own time to get the vaccine and need to be reminded of how many people have been successfully vaccinated and how rare adverse reactions have been,” the memo said.

This is the third COVID-19 vaccine survey GS Strategy has conducted on behalf of the state health department. The firm’s late January poll found that Republican voters were more vaccine-hesitant than Democrats or independents. GS Strategy’s late April poll concluded the best-case scenario is vaccinating 70 percent of Idaho adults, which dropped from January figures that found 79 percent of Idahoans would eventually get vaccinated or could be persuaded.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in January entered into a $3 million contract with GS Strategy for vaccine advertisements, public information and surveys. The contract ends in August but may be extended, according to a copy of the contract the Post Register obtained through a public records request in April.