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Americans have encountered a number of changes to public health guidelines about how to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. over the past two years.
When asked how they’ve felt about these changes, confusion is the top reaction Americans express: 60% say they have felt confused by changes in recommendations on how to slow the spread of the coronavirus, up 7 percentage points from the share who said this in August 2021.
57% say changes in health officials’ recommendations on how to slow the spread made them wonder if public health officials were holding back important information. However, 56% say they’ve felt that these changes made sense because scientific knowledge is always being updated. Still, the share who say they’ve felt this way is down 5 points since last summer.
The rise in cases spurred by the omicron variant put renewed focus on vaccination rates in the U.S. as well as the role booster shots play in limiting the impacts from the coronavirus.
Overall, 78% of U.S. adults say they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, including 73% who say they are fully vaccinated (5% say they’ve received one shot, but need one more).
When it comes to booster shots, our new survey finds that 66% of adults who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 say they have also received a booster shot within the last six months. This group makes up 48% of all U.S. adults.
Trust in America: In the age of COVID-19, do Americans trust science?
The coronavirus pandemic has put scientists and their work in a public spotlight unlike anything seen in decades. Our researchers discuss how Americans’ confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interest has changed since the pandemic began and the impact trust has on views of the virus. They also examine some of the reasons why people have or have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 and some of the demographic differences in vaccination status.
In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, some wondered if city living would lose its appeal, especially as remote work gave people more freedom to choose where to live. About a year and a half into the pandemic, there is some evidence that Americans are less likely now than they were before to want to live in urban areas – and more likely to want to live in the suburbs, according to our new survey.
About one-in-five U.S. adults now express a preference for living in a city, down from about a quarter in 2018. The share of Americans who would like to live in the suburbs has increased from 42% to 46% during this time, while preference for rural areas is virtually unchanged.
More than a year and a half into the coronavirus outbreak, large shares of Americans continue to see the coronavirus as a major threat to public health and the U.S. economy. And despite widespread vaccination efforts, 54% of U.S. adults say the worst of the outbreak is still to come.
The toll of restrictions on public activities in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus is deeply felt across groups: Overwhelming majorities say restrictions have done a lot or some to hurt businesses and economic activity and keep people from living their lives the way they want. Smaller majorities say these restrictions have helped at least some to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus and to slow the spread of the virus. Still, when asked to issue an overall judgment, Americans on balance view the public health benefits of these restrictions as having been worth the costs (62% to 37%).
As the global economy shows signs of rebounding, positive assessments of the economic situation have risen in several major advanced economies since last year. Positive views of the economy have sharply increased in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom. Yet, many in Spain, Italy, Japan, France, Greece, South Korea and the United States continue to see their overall economic situation as bleak.
More than a year into the pandemic, Latinos in the United States say COVID-19 has harmed them and their loved ones in many ways. About half say a family member or close friend has been hospitalized or died from the coronavirus, and a similar share say they or someone in their household has lost a job or taken a pay cut during the pandemic. Yet amid these hardships, Latinos are upbeat about the future. Nearly two-thirds say the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is behind the country, and a majority say they expect their financial situation and that of their family to improve over the next year.
About 600,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 since the coronavirus outbreak began. But behind that huge figure is a more nuanced one that brings the human toll of the virus into even sharper relief.
In addition to the overall number of deaths from a given cause, researchers can estimate the number of “life years” lost due to it – a statistic that takes life expectancy into account. For example, if a person with a life expectancy of 80 dies at age 50, they are estimated to have lost 30 years of life. Examining this statistic underscores the extent to which the virus has cut Americans’ lives short.
In 2020 alone, the coronavirus was responsible for about 380,000 deaths and roughly 5.5 million years of lost life in the United States, according to an analysis of provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number of life years lost is more than the number lost in a typical calendar year to all accidents combined – including traffic accidents, drownings, firearm accidents, drug overdoses and other poisonings – and more than triple the number of life years lost in a normal calendar year due to liver disease or diabetes.
A year after COVID-19 forced the first lockdowns, school and business closures and event cancellations across the country, most Americans are not optimistic about a quick return to the way things were before the outbreak. And the public is even less optimistic about when the job situation may return to its pre-pandemic level.
Despite recent increases in the shares of Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 – and who say they plan to get vaccinated – just 9% of the public says it will be less than six months before most businesses, schools, places of worship and other public activities operate about as they did before the outbreak. Roughly a third (34%) say this will take between six months and a year.
Nearly six-in-ten (57%) say it will be a year or more before things mostly operate as they did before the pandemic struck the U.S., including 14% who expect it will take more than two years, according to a survey conducted March 1-7 among 12,055 adults.
About a year ago, state and local governments in the United States began urging residents to adjust their work, school and social lives in response to the spread of a novel coronavirus first identified in China.
Americans could agree on a few things at that early stage of the U.S. outbreak. With restaurants, stores and other public spaces around the country closing their doors, most saw COVID-19 as a serious economic threat to the nation. Most approved of their state and local officials’ initial responses to the outbreak. And they generally had confidence in hospitals and medical centers to handle the needs of those stricken with the virus.
As the pandemic wore on, however, there was less and less common ground. Indeed, the biggest takeaway about U.S. public opinion in the first year of the coronavirus outbreak may be the extent to which the decidedly nonpartisan virus met with an increasingly partisan response. Democrats and Republicans disagreed over everything from eating out in restaurants to reopening schools, even as the actual impact of the pandemic fell along different fault lines, including race and ethnicity, income, age and family structure. America’s partisan divide stood out even by international standards: No country was as politically divided over its government’s handling of the outbreak as the U.S. was in a 14-nation survey last summer.
As the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. extends into its second year – with more than 500,000 dead and major challenges to the nation’s economy – Pew Research Center looks back at some of the key patterns in public attitudes and experiences we observed in the first year of the crisis.
Black Americans stand out from other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. for their high levels of concern about the coronavirus pandemic, with 81% considering the outbreak a major threat to public health and about half (49%) seeing it as a major threat to their personal health, according to a survey conducted in February.
About a third of Black adults (35%) are very concerned that they themselves will get the coronavirus and require hospitalization, and another 29% are at least somewhat concerned about this possibility.
A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Black life expectancy has fallen 2.7 years from pre-pandemic levels, compared with one year for the overall population – a stark reminder of the virus’s disproportionate impact on Black Americans.
A sizable majority of U.S. adults (70%) say they favor the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Only about three-in-ten (28%) oppose the bill, which provides economic aid to businesses, individuals and state and local governments.
About four-in-ten (41%) Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support the measure. The bill draws overwhelming support from Democrats and Democratic leaners (94% favor).
As COVID-19 vaccine production and administration efforts in the U.S. continue to ramp up, a new survey finds public intent to get vaccinated is on the rise.
Overall, 19% of adults say they have already received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Another 50% say they definitely or probably plan to get vaccinated. Taken together, 69% of the public intends to get a vaccine – or already has – up significantly from 60% who said they planned to get vaccinated in November.
Majorities in both parties say it is necessary to impose strict limitations on commerce, travel and entertainment in order to address the coronavirus outbreak. https://pewrsr.ch/2wHkLuN