Saturday, April 18, 2020

Most Americans doubt the coronavirus crisis will end soon, poll says

From New York Post:

A billboard in Times Square thanks health workers on Thursday.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Image

More Americans are pessimistic about when life will return to normal amid the coronavirus crisis, according to a poll released Friday.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll said that among Americans who said their daily routine had changed due to the coronavirus, just 31 percent believed life would be back to normal by June 1, compared to 44 percent who felt that way in a poll earlier this month.
The new poll also showed a partisan divide in the way people felt, with 51 percent of Republicans and only 17 percent of Democrats believing they will be back to normal by June 1.
Roughly 75 percent of those surveyed believed they would resume their regular routine by the end of the summer, down from 84 percent who said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on April 3.
President Trump released guidelines prepared by his Coronavirus Task Force on Thursday that set benchmarks for states that want to end stay-at-home orders and other preventive measures, and said he hoped many states could “reopen” by May 1 or even sooner.
Meanwhile, most of the country is taking steps to protect themselves and their families from the pandemic, the poll showed.
Over 66 percent of Americans who went out in public this week said they wore a face covering, up from 55 percent last week, while 31 percent said they had not, according to the survey.
Both more Democrats and Republicans are wearing face coverings in public in the last week.
But the partisan divide exists in this case as well, with 80 percent of Democrats wearing masks compared to 64 percent of Republicans.
And for the third week in a row, the commander-in-chief’s approval rating for his handling of the pandemic was in the mid-40s, putting him underwater for four of the five weeks that ABC News/Ipsos has surveyed the coronavirus crisis.
Ninety-two percent of Democrats disapprove of his response compared to only 14 percent of Republicans.
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted April 15-16, 2020, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.3 points.

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