There's a New Potential Risk Group for Spreading the Coronavirus

In every outbreak, some people are more susceptible than others. The current coronavirus pandemic preys on the elderly, for instance, and on people with underlying ailments. But in the United States, poll after poll shows the virus has found a population that’s particularly likely, through nonchalance and neglect, to help it spread. That population is Republicans.

Republicans don’t deserve collective blame. But in an epidemic, it’s important to confront the most efficient routes of transmission. In this case, the attitudes and behaviors likely to spread the virus are more prevalent in the GOP, and they need to be addressed by politicians and media organizations with conservative audiences.

Public opinion is shifting as the crisis mounts, so questions asked a week ago would get different answers today. But one pattern has persisted: In every poll, Republicans have expressed far less concern about the virus than Democrats have. Last week, 55 percent of Republicans, compared with 25 percent of Democrats, said they didn’t worry much about it. Forty-eight percent of Republicans, versus 18 percent of Democrats, expressed little or no concern “about a coronavirus epidemic here in the United States.” Sixty-three percent of Republicans, as opposed to 31 percent of Democrats, said they were similarly unconcerned “that you or someone you know will be infected.”

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An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, taken from Wednesday to Friday, found that 61 percent of Democrats had stopped or were planning to stop “attending large public gatherings like movies, concerts or sporting events.” Only 30 percent of Republicans said the same. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll, taken from Wednesday to Sunday, found a similar partisan split. So did the NPR/Marist survey. In the Marist poll, 60 percent of Democrats, but only 36 percent of Republicans, said they had “decided to eat at home more often.” In the NBC survey, only 12 percent of Republicans, compared with 36 percent of Democrats, said they had stopped or were planning to stop eating at restaurants.

More at:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/polls-republicans-coronavirus-spread.amp