President Joe Biden maintains broad support for his response to the coronavirus, although the country seems wary of aggressively loosening restrictions designed to curb the spread of the virus, according to new research by ABC News / Ipsos.
On the verge of marking his first major legislative achievement, more than two-thirds of Americans (68%) approve of Biden’s approach to the pandemic – a consistent result since he took office in January. At a time of deep political polarization, its firm approval is also reinforced by positive ratings from 35% of Republicans, 67% of independents and an overwhelming 98% of Democrats in the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
The strong backing of the president’s response to the coronavirus comes as Congress moves forward with the $ 1.9 trillion Biden bill for coronavirus relief, which was approved by the Senate divided evenly over a party vote on Saturday. The package, which will provide relief to low-income Americans, small businesses, schools and state and local governments, must now be approved by the House before proceeding to Biden’s desk.
With Democrats controlling both chambers in Congress, the long-range federal measure is expected to pass the House as early as Tuesday, despite strong Republican opposition. While Biden pushes to reinforce the government’s response to the health crisis and inject federal resources into the crippled economy, some states are taking steps to terminate efforts to combat the health crisis, such as removing mask mandates and reducing capacity limits. for companies.
Republican state leaders in Texas and Mississippi announced plans earlier this week to end state mask requirements and allow companies to operate at full capacity, even with health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, warning against the very rapid reopening .
“Now is the time to open Texas 100%,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a news conference on Tuesday, although the threat of the virus and highly transmissible variants persist in the state.
More Americans think that loosening of mask mandates and restrictions on public meetings is happening very quickly, 56% and 50% respectively, compared to just about 1 in 4 who believe it is happening very slowly, 22% and 26% , respectively. About 1 in 5 Americans sees the loosening of mask mandates (21%) and restrictions on public collection (24%) as occurring at the right pace.
In contrast to the cautious approach to alleviating restrictions that target the spread of the virus, the country is divided over the reopening of businesses and schools. Approximately one third of the country thinks that the reopening of companies and the return to face-to-face learning are happening very quickly, a third very slowly and a third at the right pace.
Opinions about the pace of the country to lift restrictions and reopen fall sharply on party lines, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats and independents to consider the approach too slow.
Although a clear majority of Democrats (87%) and independents (55%) think that the loosening of mask mandates is taking place very quickly, only 25% of Republicans say the same. Republicans are less united on this issue as Democrats, with 49% believing that this is happening very slowly and only 4% of Democrats and 17% of independents agreeing. The results by partisanship are similar in terms of loosening restrictions on public meetings.
The reopening of schools, as well as the reopening of companies, creates more fractures within the political tribes. Most Democrats say schools are opening very fast (56%), with 4% saying very slowly and 40% at roughly the right pace. The independents are divided between very fast (27%), very slow (37%) and approximately at the right pace (36%). Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of Republicans (64%) feel that schools are not opening fast enough, while only 14% say it is too fast and 23% say it is at the right pace.
The disagreement over the reopening of closed schools underscored the complexities of tracing a safe path back to normal, with teachers and staff asking for vaccinations and better mitigation protocols before opening classrooms.
Nearly 3 in 10 Americans (28%) said they had already received at least one dose of the vaccine in the survey, which, similar to other recent surveys, is likely to slightly overestimate the number of Americans who have been vaccinated, according to the Control and prevention of diseases. The most recent CDC report, which may delay actual vaccinations by a few days, shows that 22.5% of the adult population received at least one dose.
More than half of respondents in the survey (55%) say they have not tried to make an appointment to receive the vaccine, while 15% say they have tried, but so far have not been able to get one. Those who are trying unsuccessfully to get a vaccine, numerically, are more likely to be Democrats, more likely to worry about getting the virus and think the reopening is happening too fast.
Among those who sought to obtain a vaccine appointment or were successfully vaccinated, there is an almost uniform break in their view of the difficulty of the process: 51% consider it not difficult, while 48% say it is difficult.
Even with the distribution of the vaccine in progress, Americans are still concerned about contracting the coronavirus, as they have been for almost a year of research. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (72%) fear that they or someone they know is infected with the virus. However, the high-level concern has eased somewhat since the last question was asked in October. Now, 27% say they are very concerned, compared to 36% in October.
The concern persists even among those who received at least one dose of the vaccine, with 84% still concerned about the spread of the virus to themselves or someone they know.
This ABC News / Ipsos survey was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® from March 5 to 6, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 521 adults. The results have a sampling error margin of 4.8 points, including the design effect. Party divisions are 31-26-36%, Democratic-Republican-independent. See the main results of the poll and details on the methodology here.
Dan Merkle and Ken Goldstein of ABC News contributed to this report.