In one month, Americans' views of the coronavirus have undergone a seismic shift.
The pandemic's impact on their daily lives and their assessments of the perils it poses have exploded, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, amid rising uncertainty about when routine daily activities will seem safe again.
Nearly everybody has seen their lives upended in one way or another: Stressed about the safety of a mother who is a nurse caring for coronavirus patients. Barbecuing Easter ribs for grandchildren, then having to drop them off and leave without a hug. Grieving for a friend who has gone into hospice care but can't be visited. Wondering if there will be any jobs available when the crisis is over.
“America is a different place than it was a month ago,” says Cliff Young, president of Ipsos. “In that time, we’ve seen Americans take a collective pause from public gatherings, a decline in consumer confidence and rising anxiety levels. The changes we’ve seen in this poll highlight our COVID-19 world.”By an overwhelming 3-1, 69%-21%, Americans endorse a nationwide lockdown through the end of April, requiring people to stay at home except for essential work.
By 92% to 4% – close to unanimous – Americans want the federal government to make the COVID-19 test widely available. About 8 in 10 support drastic steps on immigration: imposing mandatory quarantines for people who have traveled to any other country and temporarily stopping immigration from all other countries. Seven in 10 want to ground all international flights. Almost half, by 49%-34%, want to ground all domestic flights.
"I'm only going out when it's absolutely necessary, and I have started wearing a mask when I go out," says Kathy Wilson, 52, an artist from Tampa, Florida, who was among those surveyed. Wilson says a group of friends who knit blankets and hats for charities had to stop gathering each week at the library; they work from their homes.
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