Who do Americans trust most for COVID-19 information? It’s not Trump or governors
When it comes to getting coronavirus information, there’s one person Americans trust above the rest, a study says.
The study, conducted by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, surveyed 1,000 American adults and asked them who they rely on for information about the coronavirus pandemic.
The most common answer given was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has emerged as a pop culture icon amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Desserts have been created in his honor, and he’s made it into the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and even become a bit of heartthrob, with a Change.org petition signed by more than 25,000 to have the 79-year-old named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.
Saturday Night Live also did a skit about him, with Brad Pitt playing him in last week’s episode — a performance Fauci applauded, CBS News reports.
But Fauci doesn’t just have American’s hearts, he has their trust too.
Of those surveyed, 45% of respondents cited him as the public official they rely on for coronavirus information.
Meanwhile, 35% said they rely on their own governor and 20% said they rely on President Donald Trump, according to the survey.
Another 30% responded that they rely on online government resources, 29% said they rely on other experts and 21% said they rely on international or non-governmental resources such as the World Health Organization.
But overall, those surveyed think state or local responses to the pandemic are better than the federal response.
While 54% said their state and local response was “good or excellent,” about 33% said the same about the response at the federal level.
Additionally, 39% of those surveyed said they think the federal response is “poor,” and 14% said the same about the state and local response.
The survey was conducted online during the week of April 6 and included Americans over the age of 18 from all 50 states, according to a release. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
It asked the participants a variety of questions related to the coronavirus pandemic, including ones about the activities they miss most, their habits and relationships during quarantine, where they get their information and what their concerns are.
Brad Berens, senior vice president and head of thought leadership for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said in a release about the survey that the pandemic is “accelerating shifts in consumer behavior that will permanently alter the way Americans watch, read, listen, play, shop, work, and socialize.”
“We are exploring the biggest disruption of our lives,” Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said in the release. “Daily life is far more disrupted by the pandemic than after 9/11 or the beginning of World War II, and anxiety is at levels only seen after Pearl Harbor and the Great Depression.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 1:38 PM with the headline "Who do Americans trust most for COVID-19 information? It’s not Trump or governors."
