Morning Distribution for Friday, October 7, 2022

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Friday, October 7, 2022 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [1007_POLLA-4×3]( [When Did Americans Stop Caring About COVID-19?]( By [Kaleigh Rogers]( and [Zoha Qamar]( Welcome to [Pollapalooza]( our weekly polling roundup. --------------------------------------------------------------- Last month, [President Biden said]( what many Americans have long been thinking: “The pandemic is over.” With vaccinations, broader immunity and better treatments, the death toll from this virus is [nowhere near what it was]( at the peak of the pandemic, and many Americans are returning to their pre-pandemic ways of life. As we head into the cold, flu and, most likely, COVID-19 season, as well as into an election that is about basically everything but COVID-19, we wondered: When did Americans stop caring about the coronavirus? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when public concern around the pandemic shifted for good, as there have been several inflection points. One way of seeing this is by looking at monthly surveys, like one [from Axios/Ipsos that started in March 2020]( to illustrate the crest and fall of Americans’ concerns around the pandemic. In the first three weeks of April 2020 — the thick of lockdown — just 19 percent of Americans said they had visited friends or relatives in the past week. That number has steadily risen over the two and a half years since, dipping occasionally when a new wave emerged. For example, an average of 62 percent of Americans said they visited friends or family during the summer of 2021, but that average dropped to 54 percent during the winter 2021 — the omicron-variant wave. And in the chart below, you can also see how the share of Americans who say they’re self-quarantining and wearing masks has declined, while the share who say they’ve returned to their pre-pandemic lives has increased: [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: Do Scandals Like Herschel Walker’s Still Matter To Voters?]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.