Sixty-six percent approve of Biden handling of coronavirus: poll

Sixty-six percent of adults in the U.S. approve of President Biden’s handling of the coronavirus, according to a new poll.

The survey, conducted by CBS News and YouGov, found that 26 percent of adults in the U.S. think Biden is doing a “very good” job at handling the COVID-19 pandemic, while 40 percent say he is doing a “somewhat good” job.

Sixteen percent of respondents rated Biden’s handling of the pandemic as “somewhat bad,” and 18 percent rated it as “very bad.”

On partisan lines, 89 percent of liberals rated Biden’s performance when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic as very good or somewhat good, compared to only 41 percent of conservative adults polled.

Biden performed positively among moderate adults, with 77 percent of them calling his handling of the pandemic very good or somewhat good.

The high marks for Biden comes as the country progresses through its COVID-19 recovery process, which has largely focused on getting Americans vaccinated.

That effort, however, has lost momentum in recent weeks, with vaccination rates flattening throughout the country. 

The country fell short of Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of American adults with at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by July 4, with just 66.7 percent of adults fully immunized at the time, according to ABC News.

More than 338 million COVID-19 doses have been administered in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bringing the percentage of Americans fully vaccinated to 48.6 percent.

Worries about the delta variant remain high, according to the poll. The survey found that 62 percent of Americans are concerned about the delta variant, including 48 percent of individuals who said they are not vaccinated or fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Seventy-two percent of vaccinated Americans said they are concerned about the delta variant.

Of those who said they are not vaccinated, 53 percent listed “worried about side effects” as their reason for not getting inoculated, despite federal health officials repeatedly emphasizing that all three vaccines being administered in the U.S. are safe and effective in fighting COVID-19.

Biden also received high marks on how he is handling his job as president, with 58 percent of respondents approving of his work and 42 percent disapproving.

That approval rating tracked above FiveThirtyEight’s running average of Biden’s approval rating, which stood at 52.5 percent as of Monday.

The poll surveyed 2,238 U.S. adult residents between July 14 and 17. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.