54% of Americans still think the government isn't prepared enough to handle the coronavirus
Nearly seven weeks after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, 54% of Americans believe the government is still not sufficiently prepared to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, according to new Insider polling.
Despite the government's response efforts, the percentage of Americans who don't believe the country is prepared to deal with the virus has remained relatively unchanged over the last month.
Meanwhile, Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of the government lockdowns and stay home orders.
Nearly seven weeks after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, 54% of Americans believe the government is still not sufficiently prepared to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, according to new Insider polling.
Despite the government's response efforts, the percentage of Americans who don't believe the country is prepared to deal with the virus has remained relatively unchanged over the last month.
Confidence in the government's preparedness plummeted between the beginning and end of March. Insider polling conducted on March 5 found that 40% of Americans felt the US government was "not so much" or "not at all" sufficiently prepared to handle the coronavirus. And by March 25, 54% of Americans felt that way.
Just five percent of respondents said they think the government is "extremely prepared" to handle the virus, 10% said they think it is "very prepared," and 28% believe it is "somewhat prepared." Meanwhile, 26% believe the government is "not so prepared" and 28% believe it is "not at all prepared."
The national pandemic response has also done some damage to the president's popularity.
President Donald Trump's overall approval ratings have fallen from 45.8% approval and 49% disapproval in late March to 42.6% approval and 52.7% disapproval by late April, according to FiveThirtyEight's weighted tracker of approval polls.
At the same time, Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of the government lockdowns and stay home orders. More than 75% of Americans recently polled by Insider support keeping social distancing policies in place for another two weeks to help prevent the spread of the virus.
Upwards of 1.08 million people have tested positive for the virus in the US, while more than 62,000 people have died from COVID-19. Experts say the real infection rate and death toll are likely much higher than the official counts.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weigh its sample based on race or income. A total of 1,109 respondents were collected April 28-29, 2020, a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.
Grace Panetta contributed to this report.
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