Despite pockets of attention-grabbing protests, a new survey finds Americans remain overwhelmingly in favor of stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A majorit…
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AP poll: Despite nationwide protests, Americans overwhelmingly support coronavirus restrictions
Despite pockets of
attention-grabbing protests, a new survey finds Americans remain overwhelmingly in favor of stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A majority say it won’t be safe to lift such restrictions anytime soon, even as a handful of governors announce plans to ease within days the public health efforts that have upended daily life and roiled the global economy.
The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 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 largely believes restrictions on social interaction to curb the spread of the virus are appropriate.
Only 12% of Americans say the measures where they live go too far. About twice as many people, 26%, believe the limits don’t go far enough. The majority of Americans — 61% — feel the steps taken by government officials to prevent infections of COVID-19 in their area are about right.
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 fewer — numbers that have largely held steady over the past few weeks.
A new AP-NORC poll shows a majority of Americans say restrictions in their area to prevent the spread of coronavirus are about right, but Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say they go too far.(AP)
“We haven’t begun to flatten the curve yet. We’re still ramping up in the number of cases and the number of deaths,” said Laura McCullough, 47, a college physics professor from Menomonie, Wisconsin. “We’re still learning about what it can do, and if we’re still learning about what it can do, this isn’t going to be the time to let people go out and get back to their life.”
While the poll reveals that the feelings behind the protests that materialized in the past week or so in battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are held by only a small fraction of Americans, 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 — 22% to 5%.
More Democrats than Republicans, meanwhile, think restrictions don’t go far enough, 33% to 19%.
“They’ll be lifted, but there are still going to be sick people running around,” said 66-year-old Lynn Sanchez, a Democrat and retired convenience store manager from Jacksonville, Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has reopened state parks and plans to announce further relaxations next week. “And we’re going to have another pandemic.”
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