Poll: Pandemic Soured Americans on Government, One Another

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative effect on how Americans feel about one another, new poll results show.

A total of 43% of U.S. residents said they feel "worse" about their "fellow Americans," Yahoo! News/YouGov poll results found.

Only 10% of respondents said they felt "better" about their fellow citizens.

Democrats (49% to 9%) were far more likely than Republicans to say they felt worse about their fellow Americans.

The survey showed that nearly all Americans have been affected directly by COVID-19:

• 76% said they knew someone — friend, family member, or themselves — who had been infected with coronavirus.
• 37% said they knew someone who had been hospitalized for COVID-19.
• 27% said they knew someone who died of the disease.
• 29% said they knew someone who has had "a range of symptoms that last weeks or months" after the initial infection.
• 6% said they had experienced long COVID symptoms themselves.

The Atlantic's Ed Yong recently reported that "U.S. life expectancy fell by two years [in 2020 and 2021] — the largest such decline in almost a century.

"Every American who died of COVID left an average of nine close relatives bereaved," Yong said. "Roughly 9 million people — 3 percent of the population — now have a permanent hole in their world that was once filled by a parent, child, sibling, spouse, or grandparent."

Americans also have experienced a political, social, and psychological impact due to COVID-19. Only 14% said they were better off than before the pandemic, with more than twice (35%) as many saying they were worse off.

A total of 44% said they felt worse about the federal government compared to before the pandemic, and 16% said they felt better.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (36% worse, 22% better), and state and local governments (34% worse, 17% better) only fared slightly better.

Yahoo! News reported that Republicans appear to have soured the most on public health and institutions, with more saying they felt worse rather than better about the federal government (66% worse, 9% better), the CDC (52% worse, 18% better), public health officials (46% worse, 19% better), their own state and local governments (41% worse, 16% better), and even vaccines (40% worse, 19% better).

In contrast, more Democrats said the pandemic has made them feel better about vaccines (52% better, 8% worse), public health officials (46% better, 12% worse), and the CDC (37% better, 16% worse).

The Yahoo! News/YouGov poll was conducted among 1,623 U.S. adults between March 10-14.

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