A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that management of the coronavirus pandemic, once an issue that strongly favored President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, is beginning to recede in the minds of Americans. COVID-19 is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about the economy and personal finances — particularly inflation — which are topics that could lift Republicans.
Just 37% of Americans name the virus as one of their top five priorities for the government to work on in 2022, compared with 53% who said it was a leading priority at the same time a year ago. The economy outpaced the pandemic in the open-ended question, with 68% of respondents mentioning it in some way as a top 2022 concern. A similar percentage said the same last year, but mentions of inflation are much higher now: 14% this year, compared with less than 1% last year.
Consumer prices jumped 6.8% for the 12 months ending in November, a nearly four-decade high. Meanwhile, roughly twice as many Americans now mention their household finances, namely, the cost of living, as a governmental priority, 24% vs. 12% last year.
The poll was conducted in early December, when worries about the virus were rising as omicron took hold in the country, but before it sparked record caseloads, overwhelmed testing sites and hospitals and upended holiday travel. Still, in recent follow-up interviews with participants, including self-identified Democrats, many said those developments didn't shake their views.
Mary Small, a 65-year-old pharmaceutical research contractor in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, who hopes efforts to promote gun safety will take center stage in November's elections, including her state's race for an open Senate seat, said:
"If we say anything along the lines of, 'Let's wait until the pandemic dies down,' well, this son of a gun virus has unlimited ability to mutate. We might never be done with this."That sentiment reflects the challenge for Democrats at the onset of the election year. The party won the White House and control of Congress in 2020 with pledges to manage the pandemic more competently than the Trump administration. After initially earning high marks — roughly 70% approved of Biden's handling of the pandemic from late February through mid-July — the virus' persistence has undermined the new president's message.
Comment: It didn't take much to do that considering the crisis was a lie from the get-go.
Administration officials acknowledge that the public is growing increasingly weary of COVID-19. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an interview:
"Pandemic fatigue is real, and all of us feel it at some point. As a doctor, I've certainly seen it with my patients over the years. When you get tired and beaten down by a health problem — whether it's a personal health problem or a broader public health challenge — it can lead to disengagement."
Comment: He didn't mention DEATH...the ultimate disengagement!
The White House says COVID-19′s waning as a preeminent concern actually underscores its success rolling out preventative measures, including vaccines. It argues that economic jitters now exacerbated by the pandemic eventually will ease.
Still, with Democrats likely struggling to campaign on the idea that they've now defeated the virus, the other issues gaining attention among voters pose more immediate political headaches.
Judy Kunzman, 75 of Middletown, Pennsylvania, doesn't blame Biden for the ongoing pandemic. But she's worried about continued supply chain disruptions:
"It's just one of those events that are impossible to predict and almost as impossible to fix which affect a lot of the other issues that we're having: The rising food prices. The fact that I can't buy my new car. Everything has chips and the chips aren't there."She referred to a pandemic-fueled, global shortage of microchips many electronics depend on. She's waited months for the car she'd like to become available and noted that her sister faced difficulties finding a new cellphone.
Adam Brandon, president of the conservative activist group FreedomWorks, said of the government's virus response:
"It's certainly not the victory the Democrats thought it would be. We'll have another wave next year, and I just don't think anyone's going to care. I think we're going to get to a point where everyone's just going to have to learn to live with it. This will die with a whimper as people just lose interest."Many respondents in the survey said they're not suggesting the country ignore the pandemic. But compared with last year, higher percentages of people called out other issues, including immigration among Republicans and gun control among Democrats, as pressing in 2022. Some said they were encouraged by early indications that the latest outbreak, while spreading fast, could have milder effects for many.
Samantha Flowers, a 33-year-old community college teacher in Columbia, Missouri, which has its own open Senate seat on November's ballot, said:
"I'm hopeful with omicron. Even though more people are getting it, the sickness hasn't been as harsh for most people. Since we're all going to end up sick anyway, let it be one that we can recover from better."Dorrie Keough from Garrettsville, Ohio, said she's vaccinated against COVID-19 and gotten a booster shot, but is still staying home as much as possible because of omicron. Keough, 68, whose state also has an open Senate seat this year, said:
"Whoever's not in power is going to spin it in such a way to make it look worse than it might be. As much reading as I do — and as much investigating that I do — it's real hard for me to parse out what is actually happening versus what people are saying is happening."Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said the key to Democrats' 2022 success is easing COVID-19 fears — but also delivering tangible policy results. That includes passing Biden's "Build Back Better," the massive social spending bill that remains stalled in the Senate.
"I don't think we're going to win an election for lack of anxiety, if we've achieved nothing else."The AP-NORC poll of 1,089 adults was conducted Dec. 2-7 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
And the force of terror is the most subtle, terrible one. Terror enters you and dries your soul. With terror we do not improve people's health. On the contrary, it is scientifically proven that fear, seclusion, lower the immune defenses, make us weaker and more exposed to the health conditions that affect our lives and our social behaviors. The measure of the fear that people have of the future is represented by the "Risk Premium", by the way in which they invest. The liquidity levels reached in this period testify that the risk premium today is very high and therefore the Fear is equally high. This has a terrible cost for the economy of the people and the country. I don't want people to let their guard down, I've written that in all my articles, but continuing with FEAR only generates FEAR.
If so much confusion has been generated, it is because there is a lack of proper consideration of people. Last night in the pizzeria I saw two friends having dinner together, suddenly fighting each other arguingfor vaccines. We wonder why so many people oppose vaccines?Is it possible to differentiate between Pro Vax and those who are vaccinated not with a light heart?And in the same way can a distinction be made between No Vax and those who, perhaps without knowing why, are afraid of it? They should be forced or explained how vaccines work, and why they don't hurt but save lives rather than noise and misinformation.If the situation is so bad, why are schools reopening? Why does the vaccination obligation apply in one month and not immediately and why are quarantines reduced?
People are bewildered. He's afraid. Fear. Fear.I don't want to be misinterpreted.
I fight MEDIA TERRORISM.
People need to be made aware.I have never entered and will not enter the health merits because I do not have the competence. I have had covid in times worse than these in severity of the disease and I am vaccinated. But I hate reading the terror in my daughters' eyes after the news. And I imagine many others who suffer the same dripping. Yesterday 1.37 million tampons were made. Is it normal that you stand in line for hours as if you were all lobotomized, with the risk of getting infected when you have no symptoms?
Not to mention the money spent, around 15 million euros in a single day. Would it have been better to set them aside for social security purposes? Or to go on vacation? The responsibility of health facilities that are unable to bear the burden of numbers to whom it belongs? But what have they done in two years of the pandemic? And then the incompetence must turn into terrorism on citizens? And we want to talk about the smart people who have closed the university faculties. Number closed to medicine, without even taking into account the demographic diagrams moreover.
So many Italian boys go to study medicine in Spain, Romania, Albania etc. And they come back with recognized degrees that are accepted in Italy, but after spending money abroad on food, accommodation, travel and studies. But a lot of them don't come back. And today there is a shortage of doctors. Is that why we need to terrorize people? The numbers are large but the disease is currently less serious, it is there for all to see. This would deserve different methods of communication and management. In Spain they have said enough to swabs. And they changed their approach to the pandemic.
Different data and considerations arrive from England: Professor David Heymann, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said that the United Kingdom probably is. "The closest to any country to be out of the pandemic if it is not already out of the pandemic and being able to consider the disease as endemic."He said that the immunity of the population is already high and "seems to keep the virus and its variants at bay, without causing serious illness or death. He further stated that the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic now "works more like an endemic coronavirus than a pandemic."
And in Italy? How do we behave?