Eight in 10 Americans say the coronavirus pandemic has significantly affected their lives, and most believe a return to normal is months away, a survey showed Tuesday.
Conducted by Gallup between March 30 and April 2, the survey involved asking adults to identify what extent their own lives has been affected or disrupted by the novel coronavirus.
Eighty-one percent of people interviewed by Gallup reported experiencing significant disruptions to varying degrees as a result of the coronavirus, according to the polling company, indicating an increase of 25 percentage points since a similar survey was conducted roughly two weeks earlier.
Thirty-three percent of respondents answered that their lives have been affected a “great deal” by the pandemic, and 48% reported experiencing a “fair amount” of disruption.
Only 1% of the 4,474 people interviewed for the survey said that their lives have not been disrupted at all by the coronavirus pandemic, Gallup reported.
In a separate question posed by Gallup, respondents were asked if they thought disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic will last a few more weeks or longer.
More than half of the people surveyed — 59% — said they expected disruptions caused by the coronavirus to last a few more months, Gallup reported.
Discovered in China in late 2019, the novel coronavirus has spread widely in subsequent months to infect more than a million people and COVID-19, the respiratory disease it causes.
American doctors confirmed the first domestic case of COVID-19 in late January, and the disease has claimed more than 11,000 lives from coast to coast during the past two and a half months.
Governors in most states have enacted unprecedented stay-at-home orders in the interim aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, effectively shuttering countless businesses and resulting in a record number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits.
And with the vast majority of the population accordingly subject to travel and business restrictions imposed within the past several weeks, the percentage of Americans reporting disruptions caused by the coronavirus has increased all the while.
Only 56% of adults surveyed between March 13-15 said that their lives had been significantly disrupted by the coronavirus, Gallup reported at the time.
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