More than three-quarters of Americans still feel there’s at least some risk from the COVID-19 pandemic in attending July Fourth celebrations — with four in 10 believing the threat is moderate to high, according to a new poll.
Some 77 percent of respondents in an Axios-Ipsos poll ranked the celebrations as posing at least a small risk, with less than a quarter — 23 percent — maintaining there was no risk at all.
The biggest chunk now puts it at a small risk, however — with just 14 percent fearing celebrations put them at a large risk, a big drop from the 45 percent who felt the same this time last year, the poll shows.
Democrats are by far the most fearful, with more than half — 52 percent — still believing Independence Day events carry a high or moderate risk, compared to just 25 percent of Republicans.
Combined, more than three-quarters of Republicans believe the events carry either no risk or just a small one, something shared by less than half of Democrats, with just 47 percent polling in those categories.
President Biden, meanwhile, is not letting concerns about the prevalence of the new strain get in the way of his big July 4 party.
The commander-in-chief, along with first lady Jill Biden, will host 1,000 essential workers and military families on the White House lawn for an Independence Day celebration this Sunday.
That evening, the National Mall will be filled with spectators from all over to watch fireworks over the Washington Monument.
Asked on Monday at a briefing about the potential health risks, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “The majority of Delta cases are in people who are unvaccinated. We are confident in our plans” for the holiday.
“I don’t anticipate at this point our plans changing.”
Psaki also noted that guidance had been put in place to ensure everyone’s safety, including requiring individuals be vaccinated to attend.
Despite mask mandates being dropped in many states across the US, more than half — 55 percent of those polled — said they are still wearing masks all or some of the time when they leave home. That is the lowest share since April last year, Axios said.
Some 14 percent of those polled said they believe they may have been previously infected with the coronavirus but never got tested — which would make one in five Americans having either tested positive or thinking they had COVID-19, the poll said.
That same untested group are also statistically more likely not to want to get vaccinated, Axios said.
“Some people are essentially thinking, ‘Well, I don’t have to have it because I already have immunity,'” Ipsos pollster and senior vice president Chris Jackson said of the vaccine. “But we don’t know if they had it, and we don’t know if they have immunity.”
A high 84% of the more than 1,000 adults polled said they had heard of the new delta variant of the virus, with 72% concerned about it.
That was again split along party lines, with 52 percent of Democrats saying they were very concerned by the variant, compared to just 18 percent of Republicans, the poll shows.