Gallup Poll Finds BOTH Left and Right Overestimate Covid Harms + Why It Matters

A Brookings Institution study from December of 2020 titled How Misinformation is distorting Covid Policies and Behavior analyzed polls from a Gallup-Templeton Global team and found:

1) BOTH Democrats and Republicans massively overestimate one’s chances of ending up in the hospital if infected with Covid and the percentage of Covid deaths that were children. This is particularly interesting against the backdrop of a common narrative that Republicans are not taking Covid seriously. Excessive fear appears to be bipartisan.

2) This overestimation of the danger of Covid is driving support for school closures, Covid vaccines and broad lockdowns. Lockdowns and school closures have high costs in terms of learning losses (especially for disadvantaged children), mental health deterioration, rising overdoses, delayed medical interventions, job losses/small business closures and rising child/domestic abuse on top of the curtailment of our civil rights. Misinformation, therefore, is having serious real-world consequences.

3) People who consume news from both left-leaning and right-leaning sources are the best informed and their behavior indicates they are less scared of Covid than partisans on either side of the aisle.

The Brookings authors conclude: “Our study suggests that better information and a less partisan, more fact-based public debate could help lead more people to both take steps to stop the spread of the virus and to safely engage in more economic activity.

…The most important lesson from our research is that a well-informed public, freed from both exaggerated fear and trivialization of a dangerous threat, is more likely to support optimal policies and engage in the behaviors needed to both maintain safety and avoid unnecessary economic damage.”

We would add that there will be more pandemics as we have been repeatedly reminded, so having less partisan, more fact-based discussions now has implications far into the future. We have implemented several novel policies during Covid. Dispassionately assessing if these policies were (1) effective (2) worth their costs with data and facts is essential to learn from the past year and do better next time.

Drilling into the Gallup-Templeton Global’s survey numbers, over 40% of Democrats and close to 30% of Republicans believed there was a 50%+ chance an individual with Covid would end up in the hospital. The actual number is 1–5%. These Americans are overestimating the hospitalization rate of Covid by 14+ times.

Just shy of 70% of Democrats and just over 50% of Republicans thought the Covid hospitalization rate was 20% or ~6x higher. That is over half of people on BOTH sides of the aisle.

Below we see that Democrats overestimate the relative number of children who died from Covid by a staggering 87 times, with Republicans not far behind at 77 times.

Could this be a reason so many of our schools have been closed for so long? Despite (1) the massive costs this imposes on children’s wellbeing and learning — especially disadvantaged children and (2) the data/science has suggested for well over 9 months that schools are relatively safe and are NOT vectors of infection. The authors of this paper say yes.

“These errors in factual knowledge appear to have important real-world implications. Those who overestimate risks to young people or hold an exaggerated sense of risk upon infection are more likely to favor closing schools, restaurants, and other businesses.”

…People receiving more complete information about the risks were more willing to reopen daycare centers and restaurants before a vaccine.”

This level of misinformation is particularly notable given the wall-to-wall coverage Covid has received for much of the past year. Americans have been bombarded with news about Covid and yet somehow we are wildly misinformed. Perhaps Harvard Medical School’s Martin Kulldorff, one of the most-cited epidemiologists in the world, is onto something when he says:

We started Covid in Context to help fill the gaping hole left by mainstream media and too many sensationalist independent commentators. We aim to serve those who are tired of partisan bickering and manipulative narratives, but refuse to tune out because they understand the stakes are high for our present and our children’s future. If you are seeking rational, respectful, data-driven analysis and discussion of Covid policies and trends, you’ve come to the right place.