In a survey taken at the end of last year, the sentiment of Irish athletes to take a vaccine if and when it becomes available was high, although a significant rump were unsure or needed further information. A small number said they would not take the vaccine.
"In the fourth quarter of 2020 the Olympic Federation of Ireland and ourselves would have surveyed the athletes around their sentiment," said Liam Harbison, director of the Sport Ireland Institute.
“The results were compiled in early December. By that stage we had 83 per cent who said they would take the vaccine if it was made available to them, 15 per cent said they didn’t know and wanted more information and 2 per cent said they wouldn’t.
“Certainly, the athletes are willing to take the vaccine when it becomes available, they were very clear in some of the qualitative feedback. A number of athletes said they did not wish to skip the queue over health care workers, or vulnerable people.
"Our hope would be by the time the [Olympic] Games come around most of the population in Ireland will have been offered the opportunity to take the vaccine and the team will be immunised before they go to Tokyo. "
Athlete managers believe if the survey was done again in Ireland, there would be a more positive uptake, with sentiment having changed as the various vaccines have been distributed worldwide.
“We need to test that again,” said Harbison. “That was before the third wave. Wave one or two we didn’t really know people close to us who had been directly affected by Covid. The third wave nearly everybody had had some connections with it. Our sense is the sentiment has probably increased since then. We just don’t have a number on it.”
