More than 70 percent of Americans back Biden's pandemic response, but many are unhappy with the economy, poll finds

• More than 70 percent are in support of President Biden's pandemic response, an AP poll has found.
• Biden has made the pandemic his central focus during his first two months in the White House.
• But the poll also found that many Americans are not happy about the state of the economy.

More than 70 percent of Americans approve of President Joe Biden's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll published by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on Friday.

Biden has been making the pandemic his focus since he was sworn into office two months ago and there are now some signs the numbers of COVID-19 deaths and cases are plateauing across the country.

At the time of writing, more than 520,000 Americans have died from the virus, according to a tracker by Johns Hopkins University. Biden has promised to speed up the vaccine rollout, saying this week there will be enough vaccines for "every adult in America" by the end of May.

Support for Biden's stance on the pandemic has transcended party lines: Of the 70% that approved of the president's coronavirus handling, more than 40% were Republican.

The poll also found that a little less than two-thirds of Americans approved of Biden's overall job performance so far. Around 60% said they were in favor of Biden's handling of health care and race relations.

But while the president is enjoying favorable ratings in relation to the pandemic, many Americans are still unhappy about the state of the US economy.

The AP-NORC survey found that 63% believed the economy is in poor shape. Only 17% of Republicans supported Biden's fiscal stewardship. This compares to 88% of Democrats.

In recent weeks, Biden has been pushing Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue plan that would provide assistance to millions of Americans suffering from the fallout of the pandemic.

Senate Democrats are now vowing they will approve it by March 14.

Biden previously said that his Administration must first control the virus before the economy can be fixed.

The AP-NORC poll consisted of 1,434 adults and was conducted between February 23 and March 1. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.