Nearly one-quarter of American adults report knowing someone who has been infected by the novel coronavirus or is infected themselves, as found in a new data survey from Civiqs. That number is an increase from the last round of Civiqs data, released about two weeks ago. How much did it go up? About 13%, which is nothing to sneeze at. As my colleague Kerry Eleveld pointed out last week, the data has an overarching takeaway: The coronavirus pandemic has affected nearly every single person in this country. Less than 10% of poll respondents said it hadn’t impacted them in any way, which lines up pretty neatly with the 9% who said they were “not concerned at all” about an outbreak in their area.
To get a good read on this data, we’ll look at some comparisons from the last Civiqs poll write-up, from the end of March. This new poll surveyed 1,600 adults online between April 11-14. You can check out the methodology and crosstabs for the April 2020 poll here. These survey results are weighted to be representative of the adult population in the U.S.
One positive similarity from the last poll to this one is that the majority of respondents are still spending almost every day at home, coming in at 67%. That’s about two-thirds, which isn’t bad in a time when social distancing is paramount. Perhaps relatedly, 7% of respondents say they ordinarily work from home and are continuing to do so, while 21% say their jobs have transitioned online due to the outbreak. Just over 30% report that they were not employed before the virus.
Just over 20% of respondents were completely satisfied with their local government’s response outbreak, while close to 50% were mostly satisfied. 56% are dissatisfied with the federal government’s response. That’s gone up from the 51% it was before. Unsurprisingly, 86% of Republicans are satisfied with the way Trump is handling the pandemic. A mere 6% of Democrats report the same. Speaking of Trump, there’s a close divide on whether or not people want to keep seeing his press briefings live; 49% of respondents say yes, while 40% say no.
Oh, and speaking of television. 45% of respondents who frequently watch Fox News report believing that the official death count for the coronavirus is overstated. Only 16% of total respondents believe the count is accurate, and 68% of Democrats believe the number is actually higher.
In the last report, we saw that close to 40% of respondents report losing a little or a lot of income. Almost one-third of the respondents were worried about the loss of income. According to the Civiqs polling, job loss is a very serious issue for adults who have not completed college. One out of four report losing work due to being furloughed or laid off. Less than 10% with post-graduate degrees report the same, as do less than 20% of people who have finished college.
Some numbers are dropping. In the last poll, 52% of Republicans supported a national quarantine (whether or not that’s likely to actually happen, as my colleague Hunter pointed out, is another matter) and now, only 35% do. That’s a considerable drop, and a partisan one, as Democrats still support such a measure at about 85%.
Almost one-quarter of respondents think the country will “get back to normal” in six months or more. Almost one-third are more optimistic, estimating three more months. Relatedly, 45% say the coronavirus forced them to change plans already. Also looking into the future, 52% of respondents believe states should implement vote-by-mail for the general election in November, while 38% say no, and 10% are unsure.
And lastly, 83% of respondents say they’ve experienced a grocery or household item shortage. That’s up slightly compared to 82% from the last poll.
Want to visualize how satisfied American adults are with government response? Here you go.
Curious about outbreak concerns among registered voters? Here it is.