Over 80% Of Americans Think They’ll Be “Stuck With [COVID] Forever”

“It’ll become endemic and we’ll be stuck with it forever,” says 38-year-old Floridian Ryan Wilson.

“It’s frustrating, but what can you do about it?”

Many Americans agree that they’re going to “be stuck with it forever” – or, at the least, for a long time. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that few – just 15% – say they’ll consider the pandemic over only when COVID-19 is largely eliminated. By contrast, 83% say they’ll feel the pandemic is over when it’s largely a mild illness.

Overall, 45% approve of how Biden is handling the coronavirus pandemic and 54% disapprove.

Of course the partisan division is enormous, but most worryingly for Democrats is the lack of trust among so-called ‘Independents’…

Shockingly, only 31% trust the president as a source of information about the vaccines, 24% have a moderate amount of trust and 46% have little or no trust.

The public is slightly more likely to believe information that comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Forty-four percent have a lot of trust, 24% are moderately trustful, and 33% have little or no trust in the CDC as a source of information on COVID-19 vaccines.

“I’ve switched to wearing N95 masks because I’m no longer confident in the regular cloth masks, and I hardly go out at all anymore,” says 36-year-old Minnesotan Colin Planalp.

“We’ve canceled travel plans. My son has been out of school for more than a week now and hopefully he’ll get to go back in a week. But who really knows?”

Planalp is not alone as the poll shows more Americans are taking precautionary measures against the virus than before the omicron surge.

Overall, 64% now say they are always or often avoiding large groups and 65% are wearing face masks around others, both up from 57% in December. Sixty percent say they are regularly avoiding nonessential travel, up from 53% one month ago. That level of precaution is the highest since last spring, before millions of Americans were fully vaccinated.

In summary – two years of constant fearmongering, coercive threats, and division have left the American public less trusting of anything coming out of “experts” mouths, while at the same time elevated the dissonance between their perception of COVID’s deadliness (especially for kids) and the reality of the virus risks to ’11’… will we ever get back to normal?