Vaccinated Americans are hesitant to gather with unvaccinated family and friends this holiday season, a new Harris poll suggests.
Half of vaccinated respondents said they are either 'extremely' or 'considerably' hesitant about congregating with those who haven't gotten their COVID-19 shots.
About 38 percent said they were not hesitant, while the final 12 percent said this question was not an issue - because anyone they would see at a holiday gathering was already vaccinated.
The poll reflects continued caution among the vaccinated and an increasing social divide between Americans who have and haven't chosen to receive their Covid shots.
Vaccinated people are likely to hesitate before making holiday plans with unvaccinated friends and family members, a new poll suggests. About 50 percent say they're 'very or somewhat' hesitant about making such plans, while 38 percent say they're not hesitant
The poll results highlight vaccinated Americans' tendency to continue taking Covid precautions and avoiding large gatherings
Last winter, gatherings at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays became a major source of rising Covid cases in the U.S.
Though public health experts warned Americans not to travel - and to take safety precautions if they had to travel - the country set air travel records in late 2020.
Around Christmas, for example, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened more than one million people six times in ten days.
Shortly after that holiday, the country saw its highest case numbers of the pandemic: 250,000 cases per day in early January, with more than 120,000 Covid patients hospitalized.
This year, some public health experts are predicting another surge - but with the majority of Americans vaccinated, rising cases likely wouldn't lead to as drastic a rise in hospitalizations and deaths as we saw last year.
'It is likely that we'll see some wave,' computational biologist Dr Trevor Bedford recently told STAT News.
'I would like to think it's very unlikely to be as big as it was last year.'
Still, the new Harris poll indicates that many vaccinated Americans are still concerned about this holiday season - and may restrict their gatherings as a result.
The survey was conducted from September 17 to 19 and included 2,055 adults, of whom 1,454 were vaccinated.
The poll results, published in Forbes on Tuesday, did not include other information about the poll respondents' demographics.
Among the
