Fewer Americans surveyed in a new poll said they are expecting a return to normal life by summer amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The poll, conducted by Monmouth University and published Monday, found that 21 percent of respondents said they believe that the U.S. will “be able to return to normal” in the next “month or two” or “by the summer.” In January, 29 percent said COVID-19 would be under control by the summer.
Forty percent of survey respondents said that normalcy could return by the end of the year, and 27 percent predicted that it will come “later than that,” according to the new poll.
Nine percent of survey respondents predicted that the U.S. will never return to pre-pandemic life, up from 6 percent in January.
“Most Americans feel that ‘normal’ is still many months away and perhaps a little farther down the road than initially hoped for during [President Biden’s] first days in office,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said alongside the release of the study.
Monday’s poll also found that while a majority of Americans reported being satisfied with the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine across the country, 1 in 4 still say that they do not plan on getting the shot.
Thirty-eight percent said they would get the vaccine as soon as it was allowed, a drop from 50 percent who agreed in January.
The poll was conducted among a random sample of 802 U.S. adults from Feb. 25 to March 1. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.