Voters of all political leanings support a national shutdown to stop the spread of COVID-19, a new poll finds.
Nearly 3 in 4 registered voters favor a U.S. quarantine that would halt all public activity, with the exception of grocery store and pharmacy visits, survey results from Morning Consult and Politico show.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats endorse a mandatory quarantine, compared to 72% of Republicans. Independents are also broadly in favor, at 69%.
Published Wednesday, the poll follows President Trump’s remarks in a Fox News town hall on Tuesday, in which he said he hoped to reopen the country by Easter Sunday, a timeline that has divided his economic and public health advisers since he began signaling the possibility in a tweet late on Sunday night.
“We have to go back to work, much sooner than people thought,” Trump said on Tuesday and telling Fox News host Bill Hemmer in a follow-up interview that “most people” agreed.
Governors of at least 17 states have told residents to stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus, but a national lockdown has not been issued. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the advisory task force has “at no point” considered a nationwide order.
The White House asked the public to self-quarantine starting March 16 in a campaign that advised “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” According to the poll, a small number of people are hopeful that social-distancing measures will lift soon, with 6% anticipating a return to normal activity within the next two weeks, while 20% say they see the next month as a realistic timeline. Twenty-seven percent, the largest share, viewed two months as more likely.
The United States has more than 55,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, and 802 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In the town hall on Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the federal response, declined to answer whether the proposed Easter end date was appropriate, but she said that the decision should be guided by data which are still being collected. Birx said in a later briefing that new infections clustered in Long Island show the virus has spread from New York City and called on anyone who has left New York to immediately self-quarantine for 14 days.
Asked in an interview early Tuesday if 15 days would suffice to “flatten the curve” of new infections, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, a task force member, demurred and has previously said it would take at least “several weeks.”
Trump has expressed concern that maintaining a lockdown on economic activity could prove worse for the country than encouraging people to begin returning to work in the near-term.
Morning Consult surveyed 1,996 registered voters between Friday and Monday. The survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
