Who Do Americans Trust Most On COVID-19?
Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship — including the relationship between the government and the governed. And during a pandemic like this one, it’s no abstract matter.
When people trust their government, they are more likely to listen to its advice, such as staying 6 feet away from other people and not gathering in large groups; studies have found that people with lower trust in government take fewer safety measures for their health, as Maggie Koerth wrote for FiveThirtyEight last month.
In the U.S., public trust in government has been on the decline for decades. However, when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus, recent polls do show that Americans generally have faith in their government. We collected all the polls we could find that asked whether people have trust or confidence in the federal government to handle the coronavirus pandemic or to disseminate reliable information about it. In every such poll conducted since the beginning of March, more Americans said they were very or somewhat confident in the government than said they were not very or not at all confident. That said, there was still a fair amount of variation (e.g., the total who generally trusted the government ranged anywhere from 45 percent to 66 percent).
On average, 56 percent of Americans said they were at least somewhat confident in the government on the coronavirus, compared with 39 percent who said they were not very or not at all confident. Notably, Americans’ level of trust in the government hasn’t changed noticeably over time, even after the White House started holding daily briefings and Congress has passed several stimulus packages to help the country through the crisis.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-trust-the-cdc-on-covid-19-trump-not-so-much/
