71% of Democrats think healthy people should continue to stay home: poll
Thomas McDonald
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A new Gallup poll showed that 71% of all Democrats in the United States want healthy people to stay home “as much as possible.”
“As a sense of normalcy returns, Americans have become less likely to believe that the best advice for healthy people during the pandemic is to stay home to help prevent the spread of the virus, dropping from 91% in March 2020 to 67% at the start of this year to 44% now,” according to Gallup.
The poll found that there is “a substantial partisan divide” when it comes to whether or not people think healthy individuals should return to living their normal lives if they are not showing symptoms of COVID-19. With 87% of Republicans favoring healthy people returning to their lives as normal, versus 64% of independents and only 29% of Democrats.
The poll also found that an increasing number of American adults think the pandemic is getting better with 84% agreeing, a 15% increase since April. “Currently, 11% in the U.S. say the situation is staying the same and 5% say it is getting ‘a lot’ or ‘a little’ worse”, according to the poll.
The number of American’s concerned about contracting the virus is the lowest recorded since Gallup began tracking in June of 2020. “The 20% of Americans who now say they are “very” or “somewhat” worried that they will get the disease is the lowest recorded over the past 14 months,” Gallup said.
“This marks a 10-point drop in worry just since April and a 37-point drop since the end of 2020, when U.S. infections and deaths were spiking and the vaccine rollout was just beginning,” they said.
“Americans’ concern about the coronavirus has greatly diminished as the majority are now at least partially vaccinated, cases have been dropping, and state and local restrictions on public activity have been cut back significantly or removed completely,” Gallup states in their overall assessment of the data.
“Still, the public does not believe the U.S. is completely past the pandemic, with the majority saying they are experiencing COVID-related disruption in their lives and close to six in 10 expecting such disruption to persist in the U.S. through the end of the year or longer,” Gallup states in their overall assessment of the data.