Hoover poll respondents believe in masks, receptive to vaccine

A large majority of Hoover residents who responded to an online survey about masks and COVID-19 vaccines said they either already have received at least one vaccine dose or plan to do so soon and believe masks prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Hoover Sun recently joined with six sister newspapers to conduct the online survey. Those papers were The Homewood Star, 280 Living, Village Living, Vestavia Voice, Cahaba Sun and Iron City Ink. The survey was conducted between March 26 and April 5, and 573 people living in Hoover responded. Here are the results from people who said they lived in Hoover, followed by some comparisons to the overall survey respondents.

Out of 573 people who said they live in Hoover, 458 people said they had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine (80.4%), and 55 people (9.6%) selected the response "No, but I will as soon as I'm able to." The third option, "No," was chosen by 57 respondents (10%).

When Hoover respondents were asked if they thought masks prevent the spread of COVID-19, 493 (86.5%) said yes, and 77 (13.5%) said no.

Here is how people answered that same question, based on where they get their information about COVID-19:

People living in Hoover who receive information from medical professionals were more likely to believe that masks prevent the spread of COVID-19. Those who receive information from friends or family were more likely to answer no to that question, but still more than 60% of those people said they believed masks prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A majority of Hoover residents said they wear masks in public spaces —521 (91.4%) people answered "yes" to this question. At the time of this survey, a mask mandate was in effect in Alabama. Other responses to this question were "sometimes" (43 people, 7.5%) and "no" (6 people, 1.1%).

A total of 1,309 responses from across Alabama were recorded in this survey. Most of the respondents said they lived in the Birmingham metro area: 43.6% in Hoover, 27.9% in Homewood, 8.2% in Vestavia Hills, 6.9% in Mountain Brook and 5.2% in Birmingham. Here are the answers from the entire group of respondents.

When comparing Hoover's data to the responses across the state, people in Hoover slightly more often said they had received at least one dose of the vaccine. People in Hoover also slightly more often said they think masks prevent the spread of COVID-19.