The fatigue is real. With the holidays in full swing and the omicron variant looming, Americans' attitudes toward the pandemic are largely baked in and most say they are unlikely to change their holiday plans.
A new Axios-Ipsos poll conducted Dec. 3-6 found that just 33% of respondents said they were likely to stop dining indoors, only 28% said they were likely to stop gathering with people outside their household, another 28% counted themselves likely to self-quarantine for 14 days, and less than a quarter (23%) said they were likely to cancel holiday travel plans.
Chris Jackson, Ipsos senior vice president, said the poll reflects "how much the behavior is already baked in" at this point in the pandemic.
"New facts don't seem to be changing people," Jackson said. "They've already decided what they're going to do, and they're doing it."
That said, substantial majorities of American still support broad mitigation efforts from both the public and private sectors.
From a partisan standpoint, travel bans are pretty universally popular (even though they're also pretty useless at containing spread), with 72% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans supporting them.
But Democrats and Republicans part ways on anything that might actually work but also requires a certain level of public cooperation. While 94% of Democrats favor private businesses implementing mask mandates to control the spread of omicron, just 43% of Republicans do. Similarly, 93% of Democrats support local mask mandates while only 34% of Republicans do.
However, there is one response that is universally rejected: lockdowns. Only 35% of Americans support temporary lockdowns to contain spread of the omicron variant.
It's also worth noting that delta is still the predominant coronavirus variant causing the current surge of infections in the U.S., with more than 99% of the country's cases caused by delta.
A new Axios-Ipsos poll conducted Dec. 3-6 found that just 33% of respondents said they were likely to stop dining indoors, only 28% said they were likely to stop gathering with people outside their household, another 28% counted themselves likely to self-quarantine for 14 days, and less than a quarter (23%) said they were likely to cancel holiday travel plans.
Chris Jackson, Ipsos senior vice president, said the poll reflects "how much the behavior is already baked in" at this point in the pandemic.
"New facts don't seem to be changing people," Jackson said. "They've already decided what they're going to do, and they're doing it."
That said, substantial majorities of American still support broad mitigation efforts from both the public and private sectors.
- 69% said they support businesses requiring customers to wear masks
- 67% support travel bans being placed on travelers from other countries
- 65% favor local governments implementing indoor mask mandates in public spaces
From a partisan standpoint, travel bans are pretty universally popular (even though they're also pretty useless at containing spread), with 72% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans supporting them.
But Democrats and Republicans part ways on anything that might actually work but also requires a certain level of public cooperation. While 94% of Democrats favor private businesses implementing mask mandates to control the spread of omicron, just 43% of Republicans do. Similarly, 93% of Democrats support local mask mandates while only 34% of Republicans do.
However, there is one response that is universally rejected: lockdowns. Only 35% of Americans support temporary lockdowns to contain spread of the omicron variant.
It's also worth noting that delta is still the predominant coronavirus variant causing the current surge of infections in the U.S., with more than 99% of the country's cases caused by delta.