2 in 3 give Biden positive marks on handling of pandemic ahead of speech

Two of every three people say they think President Biden is doing a good job in his handling of the coronavirus, according to a poll released by CBS News and conducted by YouGov.

Thirty-five percent of the poll’s respondents said they think Biden is doing a “very good” job handling the pandemic, a jump of 11 points from the same poll last month, and 32 percent said they think the president is doing “somewhat good.”

Fifteen percent of the survey respondents rated Biden’s handling of the pandemic “somewhat bad” while 18 percent rated his work as “very bad.”

Biden had laid out a goal of getting at least 100 million people vaccinated against the virus in his first 100 days in office, a pace that the White House remains well ahead of. Biden said last week that the U.S. will have enough vaccines for all American adults by the end of May.

On Wednesday he announced that he had directed the Department of Health and Human Services to secure 100 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine which was issued an emergency use authorization in February.

Forty-seven percent of the poll’s respondents said they think the vaccine rollout is moving too slowly, but that number is down from 61 percent who said the same last month. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 95 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

A majority of respondents in the YouGov poll also said they approved of Biden’s overall job as president, with 34 percent saying they “strongly approve” and 26 percent saying they “somewhat approve.”

According to the poll, 10 percent said they “somewhat disapprove” and 31 percent say they “strongly disapprove” of the job Biden is doing.

More than 3 out of 4 people surveyed, 83 percent, also said they approved of Congress passing another economic stimulus bill.

The House approved the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill on Wednesday, sending the legislation to the White House for Biden to sign. The votes for the bill fell along partisan lines, with no Republicans voting in favor of the bill. Biden has said he will sign the bill as soon as it lands on his desk, which is expected to happen on Friday.

YouGov surveyed 1,306 adults between March 9-10. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.