Americans are paying attention

Gallup revealed important findings regarding American public opinion on coronavirus.

It does not matter if rich or poor, Coronavirus is great equalizer, it’s out to kill anyone it can get through to. This is dramatically changing the lives of everyone, from home office to health concerns to everyday habits.

Diving deeper into this matter, Gallup studied the American public opinion to see what the people are thinking about this crisis, listing ten key findings that sum up the nation’s feeling on this unprecedented event.

First of all, Americans are paying attention. Nearly 99% of registered voters in the United States say they had seen, read or heard about the coronavirus, according to a Wall Street Journal / NBC news survey, which could mean that all Americans are going along with dramatic mandates and recommendations for changes in their daily lives, especially when there are as much as 180,271 cases and 3,573 deaths as of March 31st. Secondly, this concern has been growing significantly growing in just a period of weeks. Gallup’s initial questions about the virus were in a Feb. 3-16 survey, and showed 36% were very or somewhat worried that they or someone in their family “will be exposed to coronavirus.” In our March 2-13 update, that level of worry had risen to 60%. Most Americans are worried about the virus spreading to their community, and about half are worried that they or a member of their family will catch it.

Confidence that the federal government is doing enough to deal with the virus dropped from 61% to 46% from February to March, thus Americans have a substantially higher level of confidence in their state and local governments to handle the coronavirus crisis than they do in the federal government. The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found a 65% confidence level in state government, compared with 46% (as seen above) in the federal government. The poll also found 84% trust the information they get from public health experts, and Pew found that 83% have confidence in “Public health officials at the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” to do a good job of responding to the coronavirus outbreak. Seven in 10 Americans say the news media have covered the situation very or somewhat well. An even higher 82% say the news sources the respondent turns to most often are covering the situation well.

Gallup’s survey conducted March 13-16 found that 36% saying the virus had disrupted their life to a fair extent and another 19% saying the disruption was major. As of the time of these surveys, the highest levels of changes were in reports of avoiding large gatherings or crowds and in restricting travel.Gallup’s March 2-13 survey showed that half of U.S. workers said the virus would have a very or somewhat negative effect on their workplace. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that six in 10 voters said the “worst is yet to come.”