The news continues to highlight covid crisis sequestration fatigue (expressed more energetically as rage)--much of it political: Republican legislators undermining their governors, far right fanatic white separatist/white fundamentalist/anti-vaxers leading demonstrations and armed defiance, etc.
But the polls tell a different story. This past week the AP poll found that 83% of Americans were concerned that lifting restrictions will lead to a rise in infections, including 56% who were very concerned. This 75-80% figure has been a consistent percentage in previous polls that supported restrictions. It's not the same thing but it's close. An NPR/PBS/ Marist poll found something similar: 77% were concerned that a second wave of infections is coming.
The anti-maskers get the photo ops but a HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 62% approve of wearing masks as a public health measure, more than a matter of personal choice. Only 29% disagree. About two-thirds of respondents said they always or mostly wear a face covering in public and near people. Only 23% say they don't, which of course is enough to keep the virus going around but at least counters the impression that Americans are in full revolt. An AP poll confirms these numbers (73% are mask wearers) and 82% believe masks should be mandatory around people outside the home before restrictions are lifted.
As for the popularity of anti-restrictions protests, some of the biggest mobs have been in Michigan, and a Detroit Free Press poll found that 69% of Michigan residents don't approve, including a majority of Republicans.
The Marist poll also found that 2/3 of Americans surveyed don't expect things to really return to normal for at least 6 months. A Q poll found that 56% believed that the crisis would not be over for more than a year, while 40% thought weeks or months. This flipped the numbers in the same poll taken just last month, in April, when 73% thought it would be over in weeks or months, and only 23% that it would take a year or more.
An ABC/Ipso poll shows only 39% approve of the administration's handling of the covid crisis, including 35% of Independents, who tend to lean R.
Towards the end of the week there'd been no big uptick in infections in the US, while all 50 states have begun ending some restrictions. But there are big cautionary notes. Worldwide infections started trending upwards again, and at least one state that had loosened restrictions--Alabama--was experiencing a surge that overwhelmed its hospitals. A medical model referenced in a front page Washington Post story suggests that uncontrolled spread of the virus--that is, an epidemic--is currently still happening in 24 states, nearly half. This Memorial Day weekend is going to be a test, these researchers say, of how big and how soon an increase of infections will be.
Meanwhile the number of new applications for unemployment insurance continued to rise. But that was also true in Georgia, which has been largely "reopened" for a month. Some 40% of its workers have applied for unemployment. These are early indications that the economy is not going to rebound on its own, as long as covid threatens.
Locally, the uptick in positives continued this week, though community spread hasn't accelerated. County public health has added an age breakdown to their daily report, and so far more than half the infections have been in people fifty or under. People in their 20s are testing positive at about the same rate as people in their 60s, emphasizing that the virus may be a "boomer remover," but younger people are getting sick and potentially spreading infection. Also, the positive rate for women has been higher than for men for months now.
If we're lucky, very lucky...we won't see armed confrontations involving AlwaysTrumpers between now and January 21, 2021.
I've resisted polls so far because of the Hillary Clinton/ Counting Your Chickens Effect of 2016. But Biden's consistent lead seems to be growing stronger. The most interesting new poll is from Fox, which gives Biden an 8 point lead, but significantly finds that Biden has a 12 point advantage in "extremely motivated" voters, 53% to 40%, a reversal of previous findings.
I don't know how scientific the Morning Consult poll of social media users could be, but the findings this week were suggestive. Some 73% of them said that Trump should be banned permanently or at least temporarily from social media for spreading false information. Only 13% were against a ban, even fewer than the 14% who had no opinion.
Meanwhile, an economic model that had correctly predicted the popular vote winner of every presidential election except two since 1948, finds that based on economic conditions, Biden will win in a landslide, with Trump getting only 35% of the popular vote--so little that any swing state strategy would be obliterated.
Of course, while economic conditions usually predict the outcome, they don't always. And it's clear that Republicans, while paying their usual fealty to their economic cliches that either never work (trickle down from rich tax breaks) or which they ignore in practice (balance budgets), are aiming at inflaming so-called cultural issues and ginning up phony scandals and conspiracies.
The more desperate they get, the more they will incite and inflame their gun-toting "base." Which is why we're going to be very lucky not to see those guns come out in force and even be used, perhaps in some isolated anti-mask uprising that could spread. Or, if you want to go big but not unimaginable, in an armed confrontation with US troops evicting the current residents of the White House, should they refuse to leave when voted out of office and the new President is sworn in. If we last that long.
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