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News > U.S.

Few Americans Support Easing COVID-19 Measures: Survey

  • About 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes.

    About 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 22 April 2020
Opinion

According to a survey, about 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes to avoid infections of COVID-19 in their area.

Americans remain overwhelmingly in favor of stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19, even as small pockets of attention-grabbing protests demanding the lifting of such restrictions emerge nationwide, a new survey said.

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More than a month after schoolyards fell silent, restaurant tables and bar stools emptied, and waves from a safe distance replaced hugs and handshakes, the country mainly believes restrictions on social interaction to curb the spread of the virus are appropriate.

According to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey, about 8 in 10 Americans say they support measures that include requiring Americans to stay in their homes and limiting gatherings to 10 people or less to prevent infections of COVID-19 in their area.

The survey also found that most Americans say it won’t be safe to lift social distancing guidelines anytime soon. This choice runs counter to the option by a handful of governors who have announced plans to ease within days the public health efforts that have upended daily life and roiled the global economy.

Further, while the survey revealed that only a small fraction of Americans holds the feelings behind the protests that materialized in the past week in states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, it does find signs that Republicans are, like President Donald Trump, becoming more bullish on reopening aspects of public life.

Just 36% of Republicans now say they strongly favor requiring Americans to stay home during the outbreak, compared with 51% who said so in late March. While majorities of Democrats and Republicans think current restrictions where they live are about right, Republicans are roughly four times as likely as Democrats to think restrictions in place go too far.

The poll also found that 59% of Republicans say it’s at least somewhat likely that their areas will be safe enough for reopening in just a few weeks, compared with 71% of Democrats who say it is unlikely. Still, even among Republicans, only 27% say that’s very likely.

Anyhow, the survey found that few Americans (16%) think it is very or extremely likely that their areas will be safe enough in a few weeks for the restrictions to be lifted. While 27% think it’s somewhat likely, a majority of Americans (56%) say conditions are unlikely to be safe in a few weeks to start lifting the current restrictions.

Meanwhile, more than 45,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, while 22 million have applied for unemployment benefits since March. It’s that economic cost that has led some governors to follow Trump’s lead and start talking about allowing some shuttered businesses to reopen in the country.


 

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