As the coronavirus spreads across the United States and the death toll breaks 11,000, this crisis is becoming real for more people and not just those who have themselves fallen ill. At least, that’s what a new Axios/Ipsos poll released Tuesday suggests.
The nationally representative survey of 1,336 adults found that a whopping 14% of people know someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, which represents a near tripling just in the last several weeks. This statistic varies greatly across different segments of society, with those still reporting to work as normal more likely to know someone infected than those working from home, and the highest rates coming from the Northeast. (New York City is the nation’s biggest coronavirus hot spot so far.)
New @axios polling finds more people (14%) know someone who has tested positive for coronavirus, a tripling since mid-March.
This crisis is starting to hit home. pic.twitter.com/90AkFnXoHz
— Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) April 7, 2020
So, too, the poll reveals that more families are starting to feel the financial crunch from the coronavirus’s negative economic fallout. Almost 20% said their ability to pay their mortgage or rent had taken a hit in recent weeks, while 26% reported a decline in their ability to afford household products. On the employment front, 56% said they now worry about their job security, while nearly half of respondents said it has become more difficult for them to do their jobs.
The takeaway here is clear. It initially seemed like an abstract, distant threat, but the coronavirus crisis is increasingly hitting home for many everyday citizens. Why is this so important?
“People are literally knowing more people that have the virus,” Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs President Cliff Young told Axios. “I think that’s significant because it becomes more real. “We’re going to see many more people getting it, dying, and many more people knowing someone who either had it or died.”
Young is on to something here.
From local governments and communities to the Oval Office, our political and civic leaders are asking everyday folks to make massive sacrifices to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus through social distancing. Many believe it may be several months before we can relax any of these harsh measures without endangering public health; it was once hard to imagine everyday citizens acquiescing to such massive sacrifices in the name of what for the first weeks of this crisis felt like a very abstract threat. But now that people are starting to see the costs of the coronavirus up close, it may be easier to convince them that further sacrifice is still needed.
