A majority of Republicans say the number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. – now above 176,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data – is “acceptable,” according to a question released Sunday.
IN CBS News-YouGov interview found that 57 percent of Republican respondents said the U.S. death toll for COVID-19 was “acceptable,” while 43 percent said it was “unacceptable.” Republicans were the only partisan group of which a majority of voters said the death toll was acceptable.
Among Democrats, 10 percent said the death toll from coronavirus in the U.S. is acceptable, while 90 percent said it was unacceptable. For independents, 33 percent marked the death toll as acceptable, and 67 percent called it unacceptable.
Republican respondents also differed among all voters on whether the U.S. treatment of the coronavirus pandemic was “going well,” with 73 percent agreeing with that assessment. A total of 38 percent of all voters said it went well.
Most voters at 62 percent said pandemic treatment was “going bad,” but only 27 percent of Republicans agreed.
Republican participants were also more likely than all voters to say that the U.S. death toll is just less than what was reported – at 64 percent. Overall, 36 percent of all voters support that statement.
A total of 44 percent of all respondents thought the death toll was actually higher than reported, while 18 percent of Republicans agreed.
The CBS News-YouGov poll surveyed 2,226 U.S. registered voters between Aug. 19 and 21. The margin of error is 2.4 percentage points.
The U.S. COVID-19 death toll has reached at least 176,579 deaths as nearly 22 percent of the world’s reported deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The U.S. has documented more than 5.6 million cases, accounting for about a quarter of the world’s reported cases.
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