Two-thirds of Americans worry their states are reopening too soon, poll shows
President Donald Trump insists the American public is ready to see statewide coronavirus restrictions lifted, but recent polls suggest otherwise.
Sixty-eight percent of Americans worry their state governments are lifting COVID-19 restrictions too quickly, according to a poll by Pew Research Center. Pew polled nearly 11,000 U.S. adults in their survey, with the results showing a 2% increase in worried Americans from a poll it conducted in early April.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
The findings are similar to a poll conducted by Navigator Research, which polled 10,000 people this week. Its findings show 60% of Americans say they worry social distancing will end too soon, “endangering the economy and putting American lives at risk.”
A third of Americans said they are concerned that “social distancing will go on too long and cause unnecessary damage to the economy and Americans’ livelihoods,” according to that same poll. Eight percent were not sure which concerns them more.
“People want to go back. You’re going to have a problem if you don’t,” Trump said Wednesday. “If you don’t do it, you’ve got a very big problem.”
Pew’s poll shows just 31% of people feel their states are not lifting restrictions quickly enough.
Similarly, The Economist and YouGov polled 1,500 Americans earlier this month and determined 11% of adults feel it’s safe to end social distancing measures and reopen businesses as normal. Seventy-five percent of people polled felt it was very or somewhat likely that reopened states will see an increase in coronavirus cases.
A separate survey by Civiqs for Daily Kos asked 1,546 adults if they support their state’s stay-at-home orders, and 65% said they did.
Views from Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents differ considerably from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. While 87% of Democrats say restrictions are being lifted too quickly, just 47% of Republicans say the same, Pew’s poll shows. The partisan gap widened by 10% in the past month.
A 17-page report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with advice on how to reopen public places that was supposed to be published last week was “shelved” by the Trump administration, according to the Associated Press. Instead, the administration has put the burden on states to handle their reopenings, the AP reported.
A poll conducted last month with 1,057 individuals by NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 90% trust coronavirus information coming from the CDC “a great deal (or) a moderate amount.” Eighty-five percent of adults polled said they trust their state or local governments with coronavirus information and 44% trust Trump.