Health

Now Only A Sliver Of Elite Liberals Want To Keep Pushing COVID-19 Restrictions As Even Democrats Jump Ship

(Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Dylan Housman Deputy News Editor
Font Size:

A new Pew Research poll shows just how little everyday Americans are concerned about COVID-19, despite continuing panic and hysterics about the pandemic from many elites.

COVID-19 is only the 15th most important issue to American voters ahead of the 2022 midterms, according to the new Pew poll. Ranking ahead of the pandemic in importance are big-ticket items such as the economy, voting policies and education, as well as issues that get far less media coverage, like gun policy, abortion and the size of the federal government.

Just 33% of Americans said the coronavirus outbreak is “very important” to their vote in the midterm elections. The number was far higher among Democrats than Republicans, at 46% versus 19%. The survey was conducted from March 7-March 13, and sampled 10,441 respondents with a margin of error of 1.5%.

Even though Americans of both parties are more concerned about violent crime, abortion, guns, energy policy and a host of other problems, many elite institutions and individuals continue to sound the alarm about the pandemic.

A sampling of headlines from corporate media in just the past week shows that panicked headlines are still being written about danger just around the corner. The New York Times published articles titled “For Some Teens, as Masks Come Off, Anxiety Sets In” and “Another Covid Surge May Be Coming. Are We Ready for It?” The Washington Post ran a piece called “Biden pushes new normal amid worries about next covid surge and who is left behind,” and one CNN headline read “What an expert says about the new BA.2 Omicron variant and whether it should affect your plans.”

Previous polls have indicated that most Americans are not worried anymore about how the virus might affect their plans, and that most of them don’t feel left behind, but would rather be moving on from the pandemic entirely.

A small elite group within society, made up of progressive activists, academics, journalists and some others, feels differently. Progressive activist Bree Newsome recently said the ruling class could not “simply declare COVID over” because people will see the ensuing “social & economic disruption caused by mass illness, disability & death.”

Some medical doctors continue to take to Twitter to spread fear about the virus, particularly “long COVID.” One prominent example is Dr. Risa Hoshino, who says COVID is “not over” and that people must continue to mask and get vaccines until there is a treatment for long COVID. Dr. Denise Dewald expressed the same stance.

Progressive columnist and former Jeopardy! champion Arthur Chu said he will probably never go “to a concert or a convention or a party or a movie again for the rest of my life.” (RELATED: Biden’s New COVID Czar Was America’s Leading Lockdown Advocate)

The journalistic class has shown the same tendencies. Taylor Lorenz, who previously wrote about social media trends for The New York Times before recently moving to The Washington Post, frequently complains that people are moving on too quickly from the pandemic and making her uncomfortable. Dan Diamond, a healthcare reporter at the Post, also recently expressed frustration that people no longer care about COVID-19 enough.

In The Guardian, one piece warns that long COVID could “create a generation effected by disability.” MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan said he is still actively trying to avoid getting COVID-19 as much as possible, and CNN columnist Jeff Yang said restrictions shouldn’t be dropped until kids under five years old can be vaccinated.

These people have several things in common. Almost all of them are verified on social media. Most live in major cities like New York or Washington, D.C. and all of them have white-collar jobs. They share relatively few characteristics with the everyday working-class American, who by all appearances, has moved on from the pandemic back to normal life.

Democratic politicians have picked their side of the issue, largely. Most blue cities and states dropped their COVID-19 restrictions by early February, as polling shifted against such policies ahead of the 2022 midterms.