How Americans View the Coronavirus, COVID-19 Vaccines Amid Declining Levels of Concern

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

Continued decline in share of U.S. adults with up-to-date vaccination

 

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that just 20% of Americans view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population today and only 10% are very concerned they will get it and require hospitalization. This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health.

 

Just 28% of U.S. adults say they have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended last fall to protect against serious illness. This stands in stark contrast to the spring and summer of 2021, when long lines and limited availability characterized the initial rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccines. A majority of U.S. adults (69%) had been fully vaccinated by August 2021.

 

Underscoring the limited demand for the updated COVID-19 vaccines, a larger share of U.S. adults say they’ve gotten a flu shot in the last six months than the updated coronavirus vaccine (44% vs. 28%). And despite a public health push encouraging adults to get both vaccines at the same time, almost half of those who received a flu shot from a health care provider chose not to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine.

 

 

(more)

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2024/03/07/how-americans-view-the-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccines-amid-declining-levels-of-concern/

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The good news is, COVID key indicators in the U.S. have been pretty consistently going down in recent weeks:

 

Source:

 

The bad news is, more than 13,000 Americans still were newly hospitalized for COVID in the most recent week:

 

 

Source:

 

And more than 1,000 Americans per week are still dying with COVID as the primary or contributing cause (based on the latest week from mid-February with data considered complete):

 

 

Source:

 

[swerve]

Time to move on from covid concern.  I have had 3 covid vaxes and then later contracted covid 3 times, none of which I would call a major illness.  Why should I particularly care about covid in the future?  I am skeptical about the fatality numbers posted.  The last chart data also shows very few fatalities.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

35 minutes ago, swerve said:

  I am skeptical about the fatality numbers posted.  The last chart data also shows very few fatalities.

 

Because the "very few fatalities" you claim I'm guessing are the end "gray" most recent weekly columns shown on the chart that represent incomplete data, because of the time lag that occurs with the processing of death registrations.

 

As the CDC clearly explains in the info accompanying the chart under the "Footnotes" section:

 

"Data during recent periods are incomplete because of the lag in time between when a death occurs and when a death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS, and processed for reporting. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more, depending on the jurisdiction. The most recent 3 weeks of mortality counts are shaded grey and mortality rates shown as dotted lines because NVSS reporting is <95% during this period."

 

That's why the graphic I posted above highlighted the latest "blue" / complete column in the time series, and not the incomplete "gray" weekly columns at the very end.

 

Source:

 

Unless you mean you consider 1,200+ Americans per week dying from COVID -- the latest complete tally -- to be "very few"?

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health.

 

We live in a very strange world of U.S. politics when 20,000 to 25,000 Americans per week were dying from COVID in the fall of 2020 during the U.S. peak of COVID fatalities, and according to Pew's survey above, still one-third of the American public back then didn't think that COVID was a major threat to public health... That's pretty surreal!

 

 

Source:

 

 

 

 

 

[WhatMeWorry]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

We live in a very strange world of U.S. politics when 20,000 to 25,000 Americans per week were dying from COVID in the fall of 2020 during the U.S. peak of COVID fatalities, and according to Pew's survey above, still one-third of the American public back then didn't think that COVID was a major threat to public health... That's pretty surreal!

 

 

Source:

 

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?  I guess I am one of the strange ones that never worried about Covid. I rarely wore a mask and did not get shot up with experimental drugs. I was thinking it would be interesting to actually get Covid to see what it felt like. Maybe I did get it but never felt any symptoms.

[impulse]

What the graphs show me is that the CDC and US healthcare has lost the confidence of the majority of Americans, and not just on the right wing. 

 

Though Dems have been slow on the uptake, even they're seeing the light.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Actually, depending on the question being asked, when it comes to trust in scientists, Pew found that it's mostly Republican and Republican leaning voters where there's been a significant decline, and that in turn helped drag down the public numbers at large. In contrast, fairly small decline among Democrat and Democrat leaning folks.  So on this question at least, it really is more of a right-wing thing.

 

 

"unlike Republicans, a large majority of Democrats (86%) continue to express at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. The overall differences in partisan views remain much more pronounced today than they were prior to the coronavirus outbreak."

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/11/14/americans-trust-in-scientists-positive-views-of-science-continue-to-decline/

 

[bunnydrops]

I have never been much for shots. My last flu shot was around 2010. But I did take the COVID shots. Being in my late 70's I have many friends that haven't been as lucky as I have with my health. One was in a senior home that would have prevented me from visiting if I hadn't had the COVID shots. Just this year I know of two people who came down with COVID (Both just after flying to the West Coast from the east [Ohio, Delaware]). Both had had their shots. Both had flu-like symptoms for about a week. Will I take another COVID shot? At this point, I do not know. Playing it by ear.