Disapproval of Trump COVID response hits new high

Disapproval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has reached a new high, according to a recent CNN poll.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s COVID-19 response and 55 percent say they think the worst is yet to come in the pandemic. People who know someone who’s contracted the virus had increased from 40 percent from a CNN poll in June to 67 percent.

Trump’s disapproval rate was 56% in the CNN poll from early June.

The new poll was conducted from Aug. 12-15 with a sample size of 1,108 respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

About 8 in 10 Americans say they are angry with how the country is going and 68 percent say they are embarrassed by the way the U.S. has responded to the pandemic, according to the poll.

Trump’s overall job approval rating increased from 38 percent in June to 42 percent in a recent Gallup poll. The figures were divided along party lines, with 90 percent of Republicans saying they approve while 5 percent of Democrats said the same.

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed in the CNN poll said schools shouldn’t open for in-person instruction. Parents are more likely to say schools should open at 47 percent but a majority say they shouldn’t. Seventy-four percent of Republicans said schools should open compared to 12 percent of Democrats who said the same.

Outbreaks have been linked to opening school districts and colleges across the U.S. In Georgia, more than 800 students were told to quarantine after Cherokee County schools opened and coronavirus cases were reported at 19 different schools.

Four COVID-19 clusters have been recorded at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, along with 130 new cases, since classes started, prompting university officials to move classes online, The News & Observer reported.

There’s also a decline in the number of Americans willing to get vaccinated: 56 percent said they would compared to 66 percent in May who said the same. Sixty-two percent said they were “confident” about the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

More than 5.4 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more than 171,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.