In the early days of the pandemic, when we didn’t have much information, partisan differences in concern about Covid were relatively small. A Gallup poll from February of 2020 found that precisely 35% of U.S. conservatives and 35% of liberals were worried about the pandemic.
Since then, a massive partisan gap has opened up, with Democrats being far more concerned than Republicans. This gap persists to the present day.
While being greatly concerned about the disease was not unreasonable in the spring of 2020, when few people had immunity and excess mortality was high, the situation we face now is dramatically different. All adults have been offered a vaccine, and a significant fraction of the population has natural immunity.
More and more people can see it’s past time we got back to normal. Even one-time ‘Zero Covid’ advocates like Devi Sridhar admit the virus has been “defanged”. But in the U.S., Democrats can’t seem to let Covid go.
Their refusal to face reality is laid bare in two recent surveys: one by Morning Consult, which is summarised in the New York Times; one a join venture of Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute.
Let’s take each one in turn. Here are two headline results from the first survey. Remember, the data were collected in January of this year – mere weeks ago.