--- title: Americans Are Still Divided Over COVID-19, Pew Survey Shows description: A Pew Research Center survey finds that wide rifts persist in the U.S. over masks, vaccines, and other facets of the pandemic. canonical: https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-07-07T21:18:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:28:30.095Z article:section: Health og:title: Americans Still Disagree on Practically Everything About COVID-19 og:description: A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that there isn't much consensus among Americans about the pandemic og:url: https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc0e928c724460534/698a3375929fad3051bf8c99/Flag-and-masks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6048 og:image:height: 3402 og:image:alt: US flag over face protective masks og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Americans Still Disagree on Practically Everything About COVID-19 twitter:description: A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that there isn't much consensus among Americans about the pandemic twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc0e928c724460534/698a3375929fad3051bf8c99/Flag-and-masks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Americans Still Disagree on Practically Everything About COVID-19 > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jul 7, 2022 9:18 PM UTC  American flag over face protective masks. Blended images suggesting medical supplies business during Covid-19 crisis or coronavirus pandemic lockdown American flag over face protective masks. Blended images suggesting medical supplies business during Covid-19 crisis or coronavirus pandemic lockdown Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Jul 7, 2022 9:18 PM UTC Since COVID-19 first began spreading in the U.S., Americans have disagreed about the national pandemic response, arguing over everything from vaccines to masks, home schooling to quarantining. Now, a new [survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/07/07/americans-reflect-on-nations-covid-19-response/) by the Pew Research Center suggests that little has changed. The survey of more than 10,000 adults was conducted from May 2-8, 2022, and shows not only that Americans remain divided on their approach to and opinions on the pandemic, but also that those divisions break down along some predictable lines—especially political party affiliation and age. But perhaps the most striking number the Pew researchers announced is one that shows unexpected agreement on a (perhaps too) sunny note: 76% of Americans say that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. However, caseloads are still very high, and an [uber-transmissible variant with unprecedented levels of immune evasion](https://time.com/6193890/ba-5-omicron-dominant/) is now dominant in the U.S.—so that hopeful outlook warrants some caution. Another point of agreement was that more or less across the demographic board, eight in 10 Americans say their own communities’ hospitals and health care facilities have done an excellent or good job of dealing with COVID-19\. And when it comes to the importance of K-12 schooling during the pandemic, Americans agree that officials have dropped the ball. Overall, 62% of the public—including 69% of Republicans and 57% of Democrats—say that the U.S. has given too little priority to meeting students’ needs since the virus first started spreading in the early months of 2020, and schools began shuttering. On other metrics, there was much less consensus. For starters, health authorities, including those from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are feeling the love from some groups, but not from others. About 72% of Democrats say that public health officials have done a good or excellent job of responding to the pandemic, compared to just 29% of Republicans. People also held different views on vaccines, which—no surprise—continue to divide us, but less so than all the public shouting over them may suggest. On the whole, 73% of Americans say they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19\. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the figure is 85%; for Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, it’s 60%. Still, only 55% of Americans overall say that vaccination has been extremely or very effective at limiting the spread of the disease. The rest are more or less evenly divided between saying it has been somewhat effective or had little or no effect. (If you look at the science, there’s little debate on this point: a modeling [study](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2822%2900320-6/fulltext) published in June 2022 estimated that COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 20 million lives globally in the first year they were available.) Partisan differences split wide open when it comes to views on whether protecting public health has received the right amount of attention from the government and health authorities. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 46% say it’s received too little priority, 46% say it’s received the right amount, and only 7% say it’s received too much. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, the numbers are 40% for too much attention, 20% for too little, and 38% for the right amount. The survey also found that age represents a major dividing line when it comes to who has contracted the disease. Among adults 18 to 29 years old, 59% say they have tested positive for COVID-19 or are pretty sure they’ve had it, compared to just 26% of adults 65 and older. As to the near-radioactive debate over masking, the nation is unsurprisingly split down the middle, with 48% saying that masks and social distancing have been extremely or very effective at limiting the spread of the disease, and a near equal amount saying they have had little or no effect. (Again, plenty of research has found in favor of these practices, including a 2021 _Nature Communications_ [study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24115-7) finding that people who reported reliably wearing masks were about 62% less likely to contract COVID-19 than those who didn’t wear masks.) Finally, for the person who inevitably takes the most heat or praise in any national emergency like a pandemic—the President—the numbers offer no joy. At the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term, 65% of Americans said they were confident in his ability to deal with the outbreak. Now? Not so much. Only 43% say he is doing a good or excellent job at handling the pandemic, compared to 56% who say his performance has been only fair or poor. Unlike former President Donald Trump, Biden might have avoided contracting the disease so far, but he is decidedly feeling its pain. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/"},"headline":"Americans Still Disagree on Practically Everything About COVID-19","datePublished":"2022-07-07T21:18:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T14:28:30.095Z","description":"A Pew Research Center survey finds that wide rifts persist in the U.S. over masks, vaccines, and other facets of the pandemic.","url":"https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/","keywords":["COVID-19","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc0e928c724460534/698a3375929fad3051bf8c99/Flag-and-masks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc0e928c724460534/698a3375929fad3051bf8c99/Flag-and-masks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US flag over face protective masks","caption":"US flag over face protective masks","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6194568/americans-divided-covid-19-vaccines-masks-survey/","name":"Americans Still Disagree on Practically Everything About COVID-19"}}]}] ```