Poll: Public’s trust in virus information falls
Americans have lost trust across the board in the people and institutions informing them about the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new poll from The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
The poll finds that the percentage of people saying they trust COVID-19 information from their state or local governments, the news media, social media and their friends and family has dropped significantly compared to similar questions in April. A large chunk of Americans say they find it hard to know if coronavirus information is accurate.
Just 16% say they trust coronavirus information from President Donald Trump a great deal or quite a bit, down from 23% in April. And 64% now say they trust Trump only a little or not at all on COVID-19. Only social media, at 72%, is less trusted.
Even though Paula Randolph opposes the Republican president, she said she trusted the White House on coronavirus information when the pandemic started.
“Because of the history of the presidency of the United States, it was no matter what, they’ll tell us the facts,” said Randolph, 49, a disabled woman in Dixon, Missouri. “It became a circus, and I no longer trust it.”
She even remembers the day she lost trust in the White House on the coronavirus: April 30. Trump, who by that point had been promoting an anti-malaria drug unproven on COVID-19, had a news conference on the pandemic that day, calling his response to the virus “really spectacular.”
The family doctor ranks highest when it comes to whom Americans trust for information about the coronavirus, 0March SOURCE: CDC 60,426 in social media.
Experts in health, science and political communication said they see three reasons for the drop in trust: fear, politics and the public watching science messily forming in real time.
“The fact that trust dropped in all categories, including health care providers and family and friends, speaks to a really worried society that doesn’t feel safe,” said David Ropeik, a retired Harvard instructor on risk communication.
The World Health Organization calls the flood of good and bad information on the coronavirus an “infodemic.”
Thirty percent of Americans say it is difficult finding factual information about COVID-19. While 48% said they can tell the difference between coronavirus fact and opinion, fewer, 35%, say