WASHINGTON: With continuing surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, Americans' approval of President Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus has declined significantly, according to a Washington Post-ABC Poll.
The Post-ABC poll conducted between July 12-15, shows 38 per cent of Americans approve of his handling of the outbreak. This is a significant decline from 46 per cent in May and 51 per cent in March.
Sixty per cent disapprove, up from 53 per cent in May and 45 per cent in March, reported Washington Post.
The poll was conducted among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, with 75 per cent of interviews conducted by cellphone and the rest on a landline.
The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Over half of the public, that is around 52 per cent strongly disapprove of the US President's handling of the pandemic.
According to Washington Post report, the US President now faces credibility problems with the public with more than 6 in 10 saying they do not believe what he says about the outbreak, including 2 in 3 political independents and nearly 3 in 10 Republicans.
While the US President has called on states to ease restrictions to boost the economy, for the majority of Americans, controlling the virus is a higher priority.
The poll showed 63 per cent majority say it is more important to try to control the spread of the virus even if it hurts the economy, up from 57 per cent in May.
The share who "strongly" favor controlling the virus's spread over restarting the economy has grown from 41 per cent in May to 52 per cent in the latest survey, reported Washington Post.
Around 8 in 10 Americans say they are wearing one most or all of the time when they come close to others in public.
The partisan gap in infection fears has closed somewhat in the past two months with the share of Republicans who are at least somewhat worried has risen from 44 per cent to 54 per cent, while worry among Democrats has held steady at 79 per cent in May and 81 per cent today.
According to latest data from Johns Hopkins University, 3,641,539 COVID-19 cases have been reported from US with fatalities related to the virus rising to 139,176.