As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues in the US, Americans don’t necessarily believe the federal government is handling things well – but they do think things are improving.
A new YouGov poll of more than 5,000 US adults finds that Americans are split: 41% think the federal government is handling the vaccine rollout well, but about as many (44%) think the government is doing a bad job of this.
A majority (54%) of Democrats say the federal administration is doing a good job when it comes to vaccine distribution. Among Republicans, 36% agree while 50% think otherwise.
Although the public doesn’t necessarily believe the federal government is doing a great job, there is some optimism about how the vaccine rollout is progressing in recent weeks.
About half (49%) of Americans think the vaccine rollout has gotten better in the last few weeks, compared to the initial distribution in mid-December 2020. Far fewer (16%) believe things are getting worse, and about one in five (18%) say things remain relatively unchanged.
Democrats (70%) are much more likely than Independents (43%) and Republicans (29%) to believe that things have gotten better over the last few weeks.
A separate YouGov poll conducted in December found that 11% of Americans believe the majority of US adults will be vaccinated against COVID-19 this spring. Another 20% believe this won’t happen until summer 2021 and 15% think it’ll take until fall to reach this benchmark. About one in 11 (9%) don’t think most people will be vaccinated until winter 2021, and 11% think we’ll be waiting until 2022 for this goal to be reached. A small number of people (14%) don’t think a majority of US adults will ever be vaccinated against COVID-19.
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Methodology: 5,584 US adults were interviewed. The survey was conducted between February 2 – 3, 2021. The responding sample is weighted to provide a representative sample of the United States.
Image: Getty
