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Americans do not trust what President Donald Trump tells them about the novel coronavirus, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows.
Their confidence in the federal government’s response to the virus is declining markedly too, shows the poll released on Tuesday.
According the poll, only 46% of Americans now believe the federal government is doing enough to stop the spread of the virus, compared to 61% back in February.
Also, 60% said they either have little or no trust in Trump’s information in comparison to 37% who said the opposite.
Among Democrats, independents and Republicans, 8%, 34% and 75% said respectively that they trusted the president’s information.
Meanwhile, just over 50% of Republicans think that the coronavirus has been blown out of proportion with only 40% viewing it as a real threat, down from 72% in February, the poll shows.
Trump, a Republican who initially underplayed the threat of the novel coronavirus, admitted on Monday that the pandemic is “out of control.”
The virus is “not under control for any place in the world,” Trump told reportes at the White House.
“We have an invisible enemy. We have a problem that a month ago nobody ever thought about it.”
He urged all older Americans to stay home and everyone to avoid crowds and eating out at restaurants as part of sweeping new guidelines.
“It’s so contagious. It’s sort-of record-setting type contagion. Young people and healthy people do very well. Very very bad for older people, especially older people with problems,” he added.
The virus has so far killed 85 people in the United States and there are now more than 4,660 confirmed cases in the country, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard.
