The 29% who thought it was over at that time gave way to a less optimistic 18% by the fall, as a spike in infections from the delta variant heightened public worry.
Since then, optimism has mostly only inched higher, rising to 34% last spring and to 44% in October before reaching 49% today.Yet, a quarter of Americans still report they are very (3%) or somewhat (22%) worried they could catch the virus.
This has been trending downward since January 2022, when worry spiked to 50% during the omicron variant surge, but it is still not as low as the 17% recorded in June 2021.The latest results are based on a nationally representative survey of U.S.
adults conducted Feb. 21-28 by web using the Gallup Panel.Gallup began regularly tracking U.S. adults’ views of the pandemic in March 2020 and maintained weekly updates through August 2020, after which the polling shifted to monthly.