Poll: 62 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job on pandemic, vaccine hesitancy remains

More than 60 percent of Americans approve of the job that President Biden is doing handling the coronavirus pandemic, but vaccine hesitancy among those who identify as Republicans remains, according to a poll released by The Washington Post and ABC. 

According to the survey, 62 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the pandemic, while 31 percent disapprove and 7 percent have no opinion. 

The results on the issue differ drastically along party lines. Ninety-five percent of Democrats approve of his handling of the coronavirus, while 33 percent of Republicans said the same. 

On the vaccine front, about 67 percent of U.S. adults have received a coronavirus vaccine, 3 percentage points shy of the Biden administration’s goal of 70 percent of adults receiving at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by July 4. 

The poll found that 3 in 10 Americans surveyed said they are not likely to get vaccinated. Twenty percent said they definitely will not get the jab. 

Republicans and Democrats are also sharply divided on the issue of vaccines.

Eighty-six percent of Democrats said they have received at least one shot of the vaccine, while 45 percent of Republicans said the same. Six percent of Democrats said they are not likely to get inoculated, while 47 percent of Republicans said the same. 

Of those Republicans who said they were not likely to get the jab, 38 percent said they definitely will not get the shot. 

The most recent polling comes amid a push from the Biden administration as well as state and local leaders to get vaccinated.

The U.S. has seen a decline in coronavirus infections and deaths since the height of the pandemic, but threats of different variants still remain. 

U.S. public health experts estimate that the delta variant, first identified in India, makes up about a quarter of all current coronavirus infections in the country. 

The variant has spread to unvaccinated pockets of the U.S., with the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, calling it the “greatest threat” to getting rid of the coronavirus.

States including Missouri, Arkansas, Nevada, Colorado and Utah have seen increases in the delta variant. Biden administration officials have warned that unvaccinated individuals are most at risk of contracting the variant and suffer serious illness. 

The survey was conducted from June 27 to June 30 among 907 adults with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.