Poll on COVID finds mostly optimistic mood among Americans as cases increase
Coronavirus is still spreading, but the national mood is somewhat improving, according to a new poll from CBS News and YouGov.
More than six in 10 Americans — 64% — think the country’s handling of the pandemic is “going well,” according to the survey results released Sunday. That’s up from 34% in January.
About one in three said the situation is “going badly,” down from 65% at the start of the year.
President Biden has been doing a “good job” with the pandemic, 66% of respondents said. Thirty-four percent said the opposite.
The poll of 2,238 people was conducted over three days ending Saturday, as COVID case numbers have been increasing across the country.
The country saw over 30,000 new cases on Saturday, according to the New York Times, more than double the figure from two weeks earlier. The highly contagious delta variant of the virus — and a slowing vaccination rate — have been blamed for the surge.
More than six in 10 Americans are “concerned” about the delta variant, according to the CBS News/YouGov survey. The percentage was slightly higher among vaccinated respondents.
Willingness to get jabbed remains divided along partisan lines, the poll found.
Twenty-nine percent of Republicans said they would not get vaccinated, compared to just 6% of Democrats. Twenty-one percent of independents said the same.
