Majority of Americans see the U.S. doing worse than the rest of the world with COVID-19

By Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, BSNAug 6 2020

The United States has the most significant number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), with a staggering 4.82 million infections and more than 158,000 deaths.

Even with public health measures in place, about two-thirds of Americans think the way the country has handled the pandemic was worse than other countries, an NPR/Ipsos poll finds.

Image Credit: Corona Borealis Studio / Shutterstock

The NPR/Ipsos poll

The NPR/Ipsos poll aimed to determine how residents felt the government is doing and if its mode to combat the pandemic is effective.

The researchers conducted the poll between July 30 and 31, 2020, among 1,115 adults who are 18 years old and above. The residents were from the continental U.S., Hawaii, and Alaska. The team interviewed the participants online in English.

Further, the poll also included partial findings from another NPR/Ipsos poll performed from June 19 to 20, 2018, among a sample of 1,017 adults in the U.S.

Key findings

As the number of confirmed cases and death toll around COVID-19 continues to rise, the poll shows that two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than other countries. At the same time, a substantial majority of Americans want a single national strategy to fight the ongoing pandemic.

Also, many Americans (85 percent) are in favor of government funding to produce protective equipment and make a coronavirus vaccine available to all Americans. Most of the poll participants also said that they are in favor that the government is imposing and requiring the wearing of masks in public at all times. They agree in having a single, national strategy for businesses and for schools to reopen.

About 59 percent of Americans support a compulsory, nationwide two-week stay-at-home order, and they want that the government should take on more debt to provide residents with allowance or stipend throughout the lockdown order.

In terms of immigration into the U.S., the participants believe that the government should ban legal immigrants from bringing their family into the country and to also ban the entry of both foreign guest workers and asylum seekers.

"We've come to a pretty dire place when it comes to both the death toll and the spread of coronavirus across the country. Americans, as they grapple with the reality of just how grave the situation is, they're looking for sweeping, really broad, powerful action here," Mallory Newall, a pollster with Ipsos said.

Coronavirus situation and updates

The global coronavirus cases have reached a whopping 18.73 million, while the death toll topped 706,000. Following the U.S. as the country with the highest number of cases, Brazil comes in second with more than 2.85 million cases, and India has more than 1.9 million cases. Russia, South Africa, and Mexico follow the trend of an increasing number of cases, with more than 864,000, 529,000, and 456,000, respectively.

Reopening schools is still a debate in the U.S. as though children are mostly spared from the wrath of the virus. They are less likely to experience severe disease. However, some cases have emerged wherein children infected with SARS-CoV-2 may experience severe symptoms and complications.

For instance, two more teenagers, between 14 and 17, have died from COVID-19 in Florida, increasing the total deaths of children and teens in the state to seven. Further, more than 38,000 children and teens have contracted the novel coronavirus in Florida, one hardest-hit states by the pandemic in the U.S.

Many countries have the same dilemma on how to reopen schools amid the pandemic safely. Though children are mostly spared from the coronavirus, they are potent transmitters. Hence, school reopening should be studied and analyzed before being implemented.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new forecast, saying that the deaths related to COVID-19 could increase to 11,000 weekly by late August.

"The forecasts predict the total number of COVID-19 deaths reported by the end of each week, which helps us understand the likely overall impact of the pandemic in the coming weeks," the CDC wrote.

The CDC predicts that coronavirus deaths could increase in the coming four weeks, particularly in Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, Alabama, and Washington.