Less than one-third of Americans say they are “somewhat worried” or “very worried” that they will get COVID-19 despite an uptick in cases across the U.S., according to a new poll.
A Gallup poll released on Wednesday found that 31 percent of Americans are “somewhat worried” or “very worried” about catching the virus, which Gallup notes is the lowest sentiment noted among respondents since last July.
The current worry level of respondents is also similar to how Americans responded in February, which was at 34 percent for respondents who said they were “very worried” or “somewhat worried.”
The poll found that respondents are continuing to relax their COVID-19 pandemic behavior. Just half of respondents said they wore a face mask in the last seven days when they were outside their home, compared to 68 percent in February.
Another 17 percent of respondents said they “completely” or “mostly isolated” themselves in the past 24 hours when describing their in-person contact with people whom they do not live with, a record low registered during the pandemic.
Close to two-thirds of Americans say their impression of the current COVID-19 situation in the country is getting better – 64 percent – while 21 percent believe it is staying the same. A separate 12 percent say it is getting worse.
The poll comes as the U.S. sees a recent increase in COVID-19 cases, including over 115,000 cases reported on Monday, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
But those numbers are still a far cry from the figures recorded last winter, which peaked to more than a million cases daily at one point in January.
The Gallup poll was conducted between April 15 and April 23 with a sample of 2,849 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level.
