Poll: 68 percent of parents say they have or will vaccinate their kids, a 12-point rise in 2 weeks

"Vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. is showing signs of crumbling," Axios reported Tuesday, citing a new Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index survey. The poll, released Tuesday, found that 20 percent of American adults say they are unlikely to get vaccinated, down from 34 percent in March and 23 percent two weeks ago, and that includes a new record-low 14 percent who say they are "not at all likely" to get inoculated. Seventy-two percent of adults said they have already gotten vaccinated.

"The findings mirror those of other recent polls" showing "a decline in vaccine hesitancy, though not a huge one," Aaron Blake writes at The Washington Post. "Perhaps the more interesting finding in the Axios/Ipsos poll involves a big emerging issue in the vaccination campaign: vaccinating children. Polls have regularly shown parents are less sold on vaccinating their children than they are on vaccinating themselves, but the new poll shows a sharp decline in skepticism on vaccinating kids."

In the survey, 68 percent of parents said they have either already vaccinated their children or are likely to do so as soon their kids are eligible for the shot. "That's the highest share ever in our survey, and a 12-point spike from 56 percent just two weeks ago," Axios notes. Only 31 percent of parents said they are unwilling to vaccinated their kids.

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The FDA has only approved a COVID-19 vaccine for children 12 or older, and Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson notes that the 48 million children younger than 12 now make up the country's largest group of unvaccinated people. The increase in parents open to inoculating their kids "suggests that once the vaccine is approved for younger kids, there may be a significant surge in the vaccination rate," Ipsos writes.

Ipsos conducted the poll Aug. 27-30 among a nationally representative sample of 1,071 U.S. adults 18 and older. The margin of sampling error is ±3.2 percentage points.

Meanwhile, overall vaccination rates are rising again, and pollsters attribute this upward trajectory to vaccine requirements, the increased risks from the more transmissible Delta variant, and, to some extent, FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine.

"Although there does not appear to have been a mad rush of people getting vaccinated in the days immediately following approval," ABC News reports, "the uptick was significant enough to shift the country's vaccination trend upward."