- For the first time, a majority of Americans now say the COVID pandemic is over.
- This comes after the WHO declared the pandemic over in May.
Mission Accomplished?
For the first time, a majority of Americans say the COVID pandemic is over — but they're not quite ready to declare a "back to normal."
According to a recent Gallup poll, 64% of Americans surveyed in May and June now believe the pandemic is over, up from 49% of people who said the same in February. This dramatic public opinion shift comes after the World Health Organization officially declared an end to COVID as a "global health emergency" (although they emphasized that the disease still poses a serious threat). The move in sentiment also came nearly a year after President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over in September of 2022 and weeks after the president formally ended the country's "public health emergency."
Despite most people feeling the pandemic is over, most still don't believe life is back to "normal." According to the Gallup poll, 43% of Americans feel "life is completely back to normal," up from 34% in February.
The divergence between the two questions could come down to the question, "So what exactly is normal now?" Among respondents, 41% said we are not back to normal and never will be. Only 15% of people believe we are not back to normal yet, but eventually will be. Indeed, there are signs that things are still different than before the pandemic — just look at all the empty office towers.
But there are also some positive signs that the US is approaching a new type of normalcy, at the very least.
Many airports saw record travel numbers over the Fourth of July holiday. This led to "air-travel hell," as our Matt Turner described it (isn't normal fun!?). The US State Department is also expecting to issue a record 22 million passports this year, and wait times for those passports are weeks longer than usual.
So as Americans loosen the reigns and let themselves inch farther and farther out of the house, the next step is adjusting to this newfound self-freedom and figuring out where normal will land.