Americans’ Concern Over COVID-19 Rises

COVID-19 infections are on the rise with new variants seemingly being announced every other week, Americans are becoming less confident in the direction over the coronavirus situation is going. They are now slightly less likely to believe the pandemic is over and are more concerned over their chances of catching the virus.

These findings are from Gallup’s COVID-19 tracking poll. The poll interviews 5,000 U.S. adults, and was conducted August 29-September 5.

30% say the pandemic is getting worse, up from just 5% in Gallup’s last measurement in late May/early June and from 8% in January. This is the highest rate of discouragement about the state of the pandemic in over a year. The level of pessimism is still not where it was in 2020, back then as many as 73% said the pandemic was getting worse.

Since the start of 2022, a large share of adults (41%) say the situation with COVID-19 is improving while 30% say it is staying the same.

One in four Americans will now say they are either “very” (4%) or “somewhat” (23%) worried about the possibility they will contract the virus, while 36% say they are not too worried and 37% say they aren’t worried at all.

The percentage worried at least somewhat (27%) is up from 18% in May/June, to closer to where it was in the beginning of the year. But it is still much lower than during the height of the pandemic when as many as 59% were worried.

Less Americans believer the pandemic is over though, a majority (53%) still say it is, but this is down from 64% in May, and is higher than the 49% in February. All of the stats are higher than what Gallup had found in 2021 or 2022.

The new wave of infections has not ruined the sense of a return to normalcy enjoyed by many Americans. 42% say their life is back to normal, and while there is obviously room for more people to join the belief, this number remains unchanged since June. 43% say their lives are somewhat back to normal and 15% say their lives are not back to normal yet.

All groups interview are now more likely to say that the situation with the coronavirus is worse now than in May/June. However, Democrats are far more likely to say that things are worsening, up 38% this quarter, from 6% in May/June, to 44% this September. Independents had a 17-point increase and Republicans had a 13-point increase.

Worry about contracting the virus has increased from 26% to 41% among Democrats, but is unchanged among Independents (23%) and Republicans (11%).

Democrats who believe the pandemic is over fell from 51% last weather to 35% this quarter. Among Independents and Republicans, there was only a seven to eight point declines, 57% and 77% respectively.

More than half of U.S. adults say they never wear a mask outside of the home (55%) while 45% say they do to some extent. Only 6% say they very often or always wear one, 11% say sometimes and 28% say it is a rare occurrence.

In June 2020, before vaccines were developed and available to the public, 53% said they always wore a mask, 31% wore them often, 12% sometimes, 3% rarely and less than 1% admitted to never wearing one.

In regards to wearing a mask today, wearing one is more likely among Democrats (25%) than Independents (15%) or Republicans (6%). Reasoning for wearing a mask today finds that just under half do so to protect themselves:

13% say they are immunocompromised and protecting themselves.

35% say they are not immune compromised but wear one to protect themselves.

11% of all mask wearers say they are simply following the CDC guidelines to wear one for others protection after having COVID-19.

19% say it was due to poor air quality they wore one, no doubt a familiar idea to many Americans who death with smoke from the Canadian wildfires this past summer.

Others gave reasons of being required to do so by a doctors office, to not spread a cold or other illness.

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