Most Americans: We're Good With Shutdown
Most Americans feel quarantine was the appropriate thing to do
a Trendency COVID-19 Data Project feature
On March 16th, most businesses and schools across the country had shut down at the direction of state and federal agencies to attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19.
At the time, on average, Americans felt these measures were appropriate. When asked at the time what percent was appropriate versus an overreaction, on average two-thirds of Americans felt that the orders were appropriate while one-third did not. Today, we see that number has increased to a 74 percent/26 percent split.
The overall view among Americans is still strongly on the side of the closures being an appropriate response. That being said, we see that the two positions are closing slightly. The high watermark was at the beginning of April when the difference between the two was 54.4. Since this point, the difference has shrunk 13 percent or 7.3 points.
This is not a massive shift, however, the trend is clear that frustration with the economic shutdowns is slowly growing.
When we look at these trends between men and women, we find that women are more likely to find these measures appropriate, although the differences are not huge.
From mid-March to mid-April we saw the changes in opinions between the two groups move in similar patterns. Men moved slightly more away from feeling the closures were appropriate, but again the differences were small.
At the end of April, we have seen the views move closer together with women having an 8-point dip in the last week of April.
At the end of March, White Americans were much more supportive of closures when compared to Hispanic and African Americans.
Throughout most of April, views among Whites moved away from feeling the actions were appropriate (about a 7 point drop in the difference), while Hispanic and African Americans' views ended the month about where they started. At the end of the month, the difference between African Americans and Whites was nearly identical, while Hispanics were about 6 points below the other two cohorts.
When we break these views down by age group, we find that older Americans (82/18) are far more in favor of the shutdown order than younger Americans (67/33).
However, as we saw before, we see an increase over the last two weeks of March, followed by a month of decline among all three age groups.
During the last week in April, we saw a slight increase in the view that measures are appropriate among 65+ Americans, while under 45 Americans moved in the opposite direction.
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