Now that it’s two years into the pandemic, most living in the United States aren’t as worried about the health risks COVID-19 poses compared with the last several months — but they say they’d wear face masks if needed, according to a new poll.
In fact, 3 in 4 U.S. residents say they’d return to masking up if virus infections ramp up where they live as of March 14, the latest Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index poll has found, as most states have lifted their mask mandates in recent weeks.
Most aren’t wearing masks when they go out anymore. A quarter of the country, 26%, says they’re “wearing a mask at all times when leaving the home,” the poll found. In comparison, this is a 43% drop from early February.
Additionally, most, 66%, are optimistic about returning to “normal” pre-COVID-19 life and believe the virus poses little to no risk in doing so. Nearly the same percentage of U.S. residents, 64%, want all “federal, state and local government” virus restrictions to end.
A third of the country says they’re already living like they were before COVID-19 hit, according to the poll. Meanwhile, 23% say they’re likely going to return to doing so within six months.
This comes as roughly 2% of the country lives where COVID-19 levels are high as of March 10 and are recommended to wear masks indoors in public, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Virus cases are continuing on a downward trend based on agency data.
Ultimately, the majority of those living in the U.S., 56%, think COVID-19 is here to stay at least for the next year or longer as they don’t believe the virus will be fully eradicated, according to the poll.
The omicron variant has dominated all virus cases since Christmas as of March 12, the most recent CDC data estimates show. “Stealth omicron” BA.2 subvariant cases have doubled in recent weeks, McClatchy News reported. It made up 23.1% of cases the week ending March 12.
“All in all, I think we’re really gonna be okay and I don’t think BA.2 is gonna be problematic like omicron,” Dr. Thomas Russo, an infectious disease doctor and professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Buffalo, told McClatchy News over the phone.
The professor added that BA.2 is likely less virulent than the original omicron strain based on current data.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 isn’t declining everywhere in the world as it is in the U.S. China is experiencing its biggest virus wave, particularly because of BA.2’s spread, since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020, The Associated Press reported.
Cases are also spiking in parts of Europe, especially Germany, according to CNBC.
In the U.S., more than 40,000 have died from COVID-19 in the past 28 days, according to Johns Hopkins University. In total, more than 965,000 have died.
Ultimately, the Axios poll found that half of the country, 48%, is feeling “hopeful” in terms of life with the virus. This sentiment hasn’t been that high since a year ago.
“The margin of sampling error is ±3.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults,” the poll noted. A total of 957 U.S. adults were interviewed between March 11 and 14.
The WHO said in a Feb. 22 statement that it “will continue to closely monitor the BA.2 lineage as part of Omicron and requests countries to continue to be vigilant, to monitor and report sequences, as well as to conduct independent and comparative analyses of the different Omicron sublineages.”
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