Sixty-five percent of Americans say that President Donald Trump was “too slow” in taking the initial “major steps to address the threat of the coronavirus outbreak” in the United States, according to a national survey from the Pew Research Center.
The survey, released on Thursday, also found that 73% of surveyed Americans think the worst is still to come when it comes to the problems caused by the pandemic and 66% are concerned that state governments will lift restrictions on public activity “too quickly.”
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were more concerned over their state governments’ decisions on public activity amid the pandemic, with 81% of respondents stating that they were concerned their states would lift the restrictions too quickly. Just over half of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents said they were concerned restrictions would be lifted too quickly, while 46% were concerned that the restrictions wouldn’t be lifted quickly enough.
As for Trump’s current handling of the pandemic, 51% of respondents said it was doing a good job addressing the needs of businesses. But 54% said that he was not doing a good job of addressing the financial needs of “ordinary people who have lost jobs or income,” 55% said he was not doing a good job of “working with governors and meeting the needs of hospitals, doctors and nurses” and 58% said he was not doing a good job of providing accurate information about the pandemic to the public.
Fifty-two percent of Republican respondents also said it was “not acceptable” to criticize the Trump administration for its coronavirus response, while 85% of Democratic respondents said that it was acceptable to do so.
The Trump administration announced a new three-phase set of guidelines on Thursday for how states can begin reopening their economies. Included among the phases are the reopening of movie theaters and sporting venues, but the decision on when to reopen is ultimately up to each state’s respective governor.