Survey: Just 9% of Americans think COVID pandemic is still a ‘serious crisis’

Now more than two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, less than 10 percent of Americans see the virus as a “serious crisis,” according to a poll that was just released.

The Axios and Ipsos survey that was published on Tuesday discovered that nearly three-quarters of Americans responded that while the pandemic was “a problem,” it is “manageable.”

Furthermore, another 17 percent said the pandemic was “not a problem at all,” as just 9 percent called it a “crisis.” The results showed a clear partisan split in the responses, as Democrats were five times more likely than Republicans to say COVID-19 is still a “crisis.”

Republicans, on the other hand, were ten times more likely than Democrats to respond that COVID-19 was “not a problem at all.” 

The poll’s data comes at a time when many states across the country have eliminated their COVID-era regulations and restrictions like mask requirements and vaccine mandates, although Philadelphia announced earlier this week that it would be reinstating an indoor mask mandate because of a hike in cases.

Still, over one-third of the adults surveyed said that their lives have returned to normal, pre-COVID tendencies, and two-thirds responded that they have visited friends or relatives in the last week. Another 65 percent said they had gone out to eat at a restaurant in the last seven days.

Just under one-fourth of respondents said their employers still require that they wear masks, which was down from roughly 40 percent last month.

Only 19 percent said they wear a mask at all times, including outdoors, which is down from 26 percent last month. A new viral variant is now sweeping the nation, the BA.2 subvariant, as it now makes up over 70 percent of new infections across the U.S.