Coronavirus response, economy top Americans’ priorities for Biden administration

The economy and the coronavirus pandemic are the top issues Americans want President-elect Joe Biden to tackle upon his inauguration Wednesday, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents said the economy was a top priority they would like the government to work on in 2021, according to the poll. Fifty-three percent of Americans said the same about the coronavirus pandemic. 

The economic fallout due to the coronavirus pandemic affected millions of Americans in 2020. There have been nearly 400,000 deaths from the virus, and millions have lost their jobs over the past year. 

The coronavirus is a top issue for the majority of Americans, but there is still skepticism about the vaccine and health care organizations.

Only 42 percent of Americans say they will get the coronavirus vaccine as soon as they can. Fifty-seven percent said they want to wait until others get vaccinated. Seventy-five percent say they have made up their minds about whether they will get a vaccine. 

The coronavirus vaccine has been administered to millions of Americans already, but many are skeptical about how quickly the vaccine was approved for public use. 

When asked about which sources they trust for vaccine information, no health organization had a majority of public trust. However, 58 percent of respondents said that they trust health professionals, according to the survey. 

Other health care issues were the third highest priority for respondents, with 41 percent saying that the issue should be a priority for government in 2021.

Just 24 percent said that racism and climate change should be an issue for the government to tackle in 2021. 

However, racism and racial inequality increased 14 percent as a priority compared to the same poll from the previous year. The increase comes as the country grappled with nationwide protests in 2020 following police violence against Black Americans including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake. 

The poll was conducted Dec. 3-7 from 1,117 adults with a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.