The first national poll of COVID-19 survivors is out, and it reveals that most Americans become more concerned about the virus after they contract it.
54% of coronavirus survivors said they started taking the pandemic more seriously after contracting the illness themselves, the Axios poll found. 35% of respondents said they began considering the threat “much more seriously,” compared to only 15% who took it less or much less seriously. About a third of those surveyed said their opinion didn’t change much. (RELATED: Congress Finally Compromised On A Coronavirus Relief Bill. Here’s What’s In It)
54% of people who survived a coronavirus infection say the experience made them take the pandemic more seriously, according to an Axios/Ipsos survey — the first to focus exclusively on people who have contracted the virus. https://t.co/eQcmd0dMle
— Axios (@axios) December 23, 2020
Those who have made it through a bout with the sickness are also more likely to be willing to take a vaccine for it, Axios found. 63% of the poll’s subjects said they would get vaccinated when it was publicly available, which is 15% more than the general population, according to Axios.
Only 10% of respondents to the poll were hospitalized, and 80% described their symptoms as mild of moderate. “Even for a lot of people for whom it’s supposed to be no big deal, it’s a pretty big deal,” Ashish Jha, the dean of public health at Brown University, told Axios. (RELATED: This Year’s ‘War On Christmas’ Looks A Little Different In A Pandemic)
The survey only included 319 people, and the margin of error was high at 7.5 points. However, it is the first poll of its kind and indicates that even those with relatively mild cases often have their outlook changed by their experience with the virus.