42 percent of Republicans say they have already returned to normal levels of in-person gatherings, according to a new poll
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- 42% of Republicans say they've resumed normal in-person gatherings in a new Axios/Ipsos poll.
- The poll found that Americans largely don't believe that the vaccine is the magic ticket out of the crisis.
- COVID-19 cases are drastically falling across the country, but new variants pose threats.
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Americans are still largely divided along political lines as to when they plan to resume their normal pre-COVID activities, with 42% of Republicans saying they already resumed normal levels of in-person social gatherings in a new Axios/Ipsos poll.
Overall, the poll found little consensus on when Americans as a whole plan to return to regular social activities or whose guidance they plan to follow.
In the survey, 28% of survey respondents saying they've resumed attending in-person social gatherings, 22% saying they will do so when they and their inner circle are vaccinated, 24% stating they will do so when state and local officials say it's safe, and 24% saying they're unsure.
The poll, conducted February 5 to 8, surveyed a representative sample of 1,030 American adults with a margin of error of ±3.4 percentage points.
Among Republicans, 19% said they would wait until they and their inner circle were vaccinated, 12% said they would wait for the green light from public health officials, and 26% didn't know.
Just 10% of Democrats said they had resumed attending normal in-person social gatherings, while 27% said they would wait under they and their inner circle are vaccinated, 34% will do so when state and national health officials say it's safe to do, and 27% didn't know.
Results were also somewhat divided along educational lines. While a relatively equivalent proportion of those without a college degree and those with a bachelor's degree (27% and 28%, respectively), said they had resumed normal in-person gatherings, a far higher proportion of those without a degree said they were unsure of when to resume gatherings than those with a degree.
Among respondents over 65, who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, only 15% said they had resumed normal in-person gatherings.
COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are in significant decline across the country after a devastating surge of cases around the holidays.
New cases have fallen by 36% in the last 14 days, hospitalizations by 26%, and deaths by 12%, according to The New York Times. The seven-day average of new daily cases has dropped from nearly 254,000 on January 9 to 111,210 on February 8.
The United States is steadily vaccinating its population with two vaccines given Emergency Use Authorization from the Food & Drug Administration, Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna's two-shot mRNA vaccines.
As of Monday evening, 10% of Americans had received their first vaccine dose and 3.5% had received both doses, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the decline in cases and the rise in vaccinations are encouraging signs for the United States, emerging COVID-19 variants from the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa are on the rise pose new threats to the US getting the pandemic under control.
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