A familiar illness: Survey shows one-third of U.S. knows someone who has been sick with coronavirus.
Number has more than tripled in four months
WASHINGTON – As the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. climbs, Americans are three times as likely to know someone who has been sick with the virus as they were in March, according to a new survey. A disparity among racial groups that didn’t exist in March also appeared.
More than one-third of Americans (36%) say someone they know outside their immediate family or work has been sick with the coronavirus, according to a survey from the Democracy Fund and UCLA Nationscape Project. That number is more than triple the number in mid-march, when it was 11%.
The U.S. has reached 3 million documented cases of COVID-19, roughly a quarter of the world’s cases and the same percentage of its deaths. The spike in cases comes after many states eased social distancing guidelines. Since the rise in cases, some states paused reopening and issued requirements for residents to wear masks.
The number of Americans who say a member of their immediate family has been sick with coronavirus more than doubled since March, according to the Nationscape Insights analysis, a project of Democracy Fund, UCLA and USA TODAY.
As of late June, that number was 8% compared with 3% in March.
Nearly three times as many Americans say someone in their workplace has been sick with coronavirus (17%) as in March (6%).
“There’s just a much larger percentage of people today who are saying, ‘This is impacting me and my personal family,’ ” said Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group.
The Democracy Fund and UCLA Nationscape Project is a study of the American electorate designed to conduct 500,000 interviews about policies and the presidential candidates during the 2020 election cycle. The latest poll was conducted the week of June 25, surveying 6,416 Americans. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. The older poll was conducted the week of March 18, surveying 6,413 Americans. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
The survey shows a growing racial disparity among those who report immediate family members have been sick with the virus.
Black (11%) and Latino (11%) Americans are more likely than white Americans (7%) to have an immediate family member who got sick, according to the survey. The racial differences were not apparent in the March survey.
Amid the pandemic, Black and Latino Americans have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. According to a report from The New York Times, Latino and Black Americans have been three times as likely to become infected with the virus as white Americans. Black and Latino people are nearly twice as likely to die from the virus compared with white Americans, the Times reported.