WASHINGTON — Three-quarters of adults say the coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on their lives, according to the newest data from the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking Poll.
Thirty-seven percent say the pandemic has had a “very major” impact, with another 37 percent saying it has had an impact in a “fairly major” way. Twenty-one percent say it has affected their lives only in a “small way,” and just 3 percent said it hasn’t changed their lives in any way.
Racial minorities, lower-income adults and Democrats were more likely to say the pandemic has had a “very major” effect on their lives.
Forty-eight percent of Blacks, 45 percent of Hispanics and 45 percent of Asians say that, compared with 33 percent of whites.
Forty-three percent of adults whose total family incomes are below $50,000 say there has been a “very major” effect on their lives. Thirty-four percent of those making $50,000 to $99,999 and 35 percent of those making $100,000 or above say the same.
And 49 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults say the pandemic has changed their lives in a “very major” way, compared to 40 percent of independents and 25 percent of Republicans.
As of Monday, there have been more than 7.8 million confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S., with 216,000 deaths attributed to the coronavirus.
One of the ways the pandemic may have changed people’s day-to-day lives is their worry over contracting the virus. Sixty-eight percent of adults say they are somewhat or very worried that they or someone in their families will be exposed to the virus, while 31 percent say they aren’t too worried or aren’t worried at all.
Fifty-six percent say they’ve left their homes in the previous 24 hours to go grocery shopping, 46 percent say they’ve left their homes to go for walks, 44 percent say they’ve left to go to work, 30 percent say they’ve left to visit family or friends, and 23 percent say they’ve left to eat at restaurants or bars.
President Donald Trump continues to get poor marks for his handling of the pandemic. Fifty-five percent of adults somewhat or strongly disapprove of the president’s handling of the government response, while 43 percent somewhat or strongly approve.
Meanwhile, a majority of adults somewhat or strongly approve of their respective state governors’ handling of the pandemic — 58 percent to 40 percent.
The president tested positive for the virus less than two weeks ago and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He returned to campaigning in person Monday night with a rally in Florida. The president’s physician wrote in a memo Monday that Trump had “tested negative” for Covid-19 on “consecutive days.”
Data come from a set of SurveyMonkey online polls conducted Oct. 5-11, 2020, among a national sample of 66,877 adults in the U.S. Respondents were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 1.0 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States ages 18 and over.
