Thursday, March 19, 2020

Americans Following COVID-19 Pandemic


The COVID-19 pandemic has caught Americans’ rapt attention. 

Roughly half of U.S. adults (51%) are following news about it very closely, according to new survey data from Pew Research Center's Election News Pathways project

And while the public gives the news media fairly high marks when it comes to their coverage of the virus, about half of U.S. adults (48%) report that they’ve seen at least some made-up news about the pandemic. 

For example, when asked about the origin of the current strain of the coronavirus (COVID-19) while roughly four-in-ten U.S. adults (43%) correctly answer that it most likely came about naturally, about two-in-ten (23%) believe it was developed intentionally in a lab. A majority of adults (62%) say the news media has exaggerated risks from the coronavirus outbreak, while 52% of U.S. adults say Trump has not taken the risks seriously enough. 

Explore differences by party on this Trump measure in Pew's related report

Partisanship is evident throughout the survey results, but even within party difference emerge based on media diet, especially when it comes to perceptions about the news media's coverage of the virus and certain beliefs surrounding the outbreak. 

The new analyses stems from a survey of 8,914 U.S. adults who are members of the Center's American Trends Panel, conducted March 10-16, 2020.

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