Were COVID policies like mask and vaccine mandates good ideas? What Americans say now

Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans believe some of the signature policy responses were appropriate, new polling reveals.

In a June 17 poll by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a majority of respondents said four major pandemic policies were “generally a good idea” in hindsight.

The poll — conducted between March 21 and April 2 — sampled 1,017 adults from across the country and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

Seventy percent of respondents said mask mandates in businesses and stores were generally a good idea, and 65% said the same for vaccine requirements for health care workers.

Additionally, 63% of respondents said indoor dining closures were generally a good idea, and 56% said the same for public school closures.

When asked about all four policies together, 42% of respondents said they were a good idea, while 37% said some were a good idea. Meanwhile, 20% said all four policies were “generally a bad idea.”

Attitudes toward these policies varied widely depending on the race, political affiliation and geographic location of respondents.

Seventy-one percent of Democrats said all four policies were generally a good idea, while 44% of independents and only 18% of Republicans said the same.

Sixty-two percent of Black adults and 55% of Hispanic adults said the policies were a good idea. Meanwhile, less than one-third of white adults, 32%, said they were a good idea.

Additionally, 55% of people living in urban areas said the policies were a good idea, while 39% of people living in the suburbs and 39% of people living in rural areas said the same.

Despite the disparity in views among the subgroups, there was at least some room for agreement.

A majority of respondents from each subgroup — including 70% of those in rural areas and 62% of Republicans — said at least one of the pandemic policies was broadly a good idea.

The respondents who weren’t in favor of the four pandemic policies cited a number of reasons for their answers.

The most commonly selected reason was the belief that the pandemic policies were in place for too long. Respondents also cited: concerns that the policies were motivated by politics, concerns about how the economy was affected and an infringement on personal freedoms.

Among respondents who said closing schools was a bad idea, 97% cited their belief that the policy negatively impacted children’s education. Additionally, 91% cited their perception that it had a detrimental effect on children’s mental health.

The poll also found respondents held varied beliefs about the severity of COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic.

Only 3% of respondents said the disease “was not a health threat to anyone,” though 14% said it was only a serious threat to the very old or infirm.

Nearly half of respondents, 45%, said the disease only posed a serious health threat to the very old or infirm and to those with “underlying health conditions.”

Roughly one-third, 37%, said COVID-19 was a serious threat to everyone during the early stages of the pandemic.

Gillian SteelFisher, the director of global polling in the Harvard Opinion Research Program, said in the poll, “These data suggest that keeping outbreak response policies focused on the most at-risk populations, communicating clear, limited time frames, and considering the broader economic and societal impacts of policies could go a long way to maintaining public support in the next outbreak and beyond.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2024 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Were COVID policies like mask and vaccine mandates good ideas? What Americans say now."