(CNN) Most in the media have been urging Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. That hasn't always been the case at Fox News, however. Many of the hosts have peddled anti-vaccine rhetoric.
This past week, though, a number of hosts at Fox have taken a more pro-vaccine tone.
One reason could be that the majority Republican audience who watch Fox are less likely to be vaccinated than the public at large.
Take a look at recent data from the Axios/Ipsos tracking poll -- specifically, a combined sample of their last two surveys (in order to get a good sample size).
According to the combined sample, 62% of adults who use Fox News as their main news source have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That's not nothing, but it's still relatively low.
The Ipsos poll found that 70% of all adults had at least one vaccine dose in their polling (very close to what the CDC is showing). Fox News is plenty below that.
This is the opposite pattern we see from people whose main news source is television or radio and not Fox News.
The people who get their news from CNN or MSNBC, for example, had a vaccination rate of 83% in the same polling. Likewise, 79% of adults who rely on network news have had at least one dose of a vaccine. About three-quarters (74%) who get their news from public television or radio were at least partially vaccinated.
On the one hand, this really shouldn't be surprising. Fox News viewers are far more Republican leaning than those of most other television news outlets. We know from the data that Republicans are less likely to get vaccinated, regardless of their main news source.
Put another way, it's not clear whether Fox News is causing people to want the vaccine less or whether its viewers are predisposed to want it less.
For whatever reason, the trendline indicates that Fox News fans have also hit a wall in terms of their vaccination rate. If you examine Ipsos polls conducted from mid-April to mid-June, about 61% of people who get their news from Fox had gotten a vaccine at that point. That's just a point less than the percentage of Fox News viewers now who say they've gotten a vaccine.
This type of movement is well within any margin of error.
During the same period, adults overall with at least one dose went from 63% to 70%. Those who get their news from CNN or MSNBC saw their vaccination rate jump from 74% to 83%. The people who get their news from the major networks had their vaccination rate climb from a little less than 75% to a little more than 79%.
The reason why the television comparison is so important is because of age. Older Americans have been more likely to have been vaccinated than younger Americans. Additionally, they are the ones who get vaccinated at the highest level earlier on in the pandemic.
The Fox News audience, like many television audiences, is relatively old. In the poll, the average age was 55 for a person whose main news source is Fox News.
The average of all respondents in the poll was 48.
This should mean that barring anything else, the Fox News audience should have a higher vaccination rate. This, of course, is not the case.
The obvious hope is that Fox News viewers who weren't going to get the vaccine decide at a minimum to take a second look as Fox News personalities take a more pro-vaccine stance.
Americans, regardless of where they get their news or who they vote for, are in this fight against the pandemic together. The more people vaccinated, the better chance we have at saving lives.