Half of Americans have confidence in a Covid-19 vaccine – but Trump’s endorsement shakes their trust

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Just over half of Americans have confidence in a coronavirus vaccine, but when Donald Trump and Joe Biden are brought into the conversation, scepticism grows.

Fifty-one per cent of those surveyed for a JL Partners-Independent poll expressed confidence in a Covid-19 vaccine, while 41 per cent said they are not confident – including 17 per cent who have no confidence at all.

A closer look at the new survey shows just how deeply America’s partisan divides run.

Overall, confidence falls to 40 per cent among all respondents if Mr Biden endorses a potential vaccine.

The fall for Mr Trump is even more steep, with only 25 per cent of those surveyed saying a presidential endorsement of a vaccine would inspire confidence.

This reflects the president’s dwindling poll numbers among many Americans, including Republican voters, on all things coronavirus. Sixty-five per cent of respondents said a Trump endorsement would give them zero confidence in a vaccine.

Remarkably, amid spiking virus cases and hospitalisations, the president used a Monday evening campaign rally in Tucson – in battleground Arizona – to declare Americans “pandemic’d” out, earlier in the day in Prescott calling CNN “dumb bastards” for devoting so much coverage to a virus that has killed at least 220,000 people on US soil.

When Trump voters were asked about a Biden endorsement, 19 per cent said the former VP’s word would give them confidence in a Covid-blocking drug.

When Biden backers were asked the same about the president, the confidence level was even lower: 12 per cent.

Mr Trump for months teased a vaccine would be “ready” before Election Day, before shifting those projections until by the end of the year or early next year. He has begun using the vaccine development as an attack line on his rival

“Biden will delay therapies, postpone the vaccine, prolong the pandemic, close your schools and shut down our country and we're opening and we're opening rapidly,” the president told a large rally crowd in Tucson.

“We are rounding the turn,” the president said of the pandemic. “We have the vaccines coming ... but even without, we're rounding the turn. People are pandemic’d out. You know that they're pandemic’d out.”

For his part, Mr Biden and other Democrats have criticised the president and his team for, in their view, rushing work on a vaccine. They are concerned the Trump administration could make millions sick – not from the virus, but from a drug intended to innoculate Americans from it.

During a town hall last week hosted by ABC News, Mr Biden said if Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official who is in another war of words with the president amid his latest media blitz, signs off on a vaccine, “I’d take it.”