Majority of Americans say they're 'embarrassed' by US coronavirus response as disapproval over Trump's handling hits record high

The majority of Americans are embarrassed by the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic as disapproval over President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis reached a new high in a poll published this week.

In the CNN poll conducted by SSRS, 68 per cent of respondents said they felt embarrassed by “the way the United States has responded to the coronavirus outbreak”, compared to just 28 per cent who said they were proud by the country’s handling of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, 62 per cent of those surveyed said the president could be doing more to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, which has already killed over 165,000 Americans since the pandemic began earlier this year.

Disapproval over Mr Trump’s handling of the novel coronavirus has risen steadily since early March, with a double-digit increase since CNN first conducted the poll. Just 38 per cent of those surveyed said they approved of the president’s response to the outbreak.

The president’s declining support amid the pandemic comes as national surveys show him losing in a head-to-head match-up against former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr Trump also appeared to be losing against the former vice president in critical battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which helped the president secure a victory in the 2016 elections.

Nearly 79 per cent of respondents also said they were angry “about the way things are going” in the US, with only 12 per cent saying they were “not angry at all”.

The poll featured 1,108 respondents and was conducted during a three-day period beginning 12 August, with a 3.7-point margin of sampling error.

However, a slight majority (51 per cent) of respondents also said they approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That support has fluctuated since March, when states were forced to shutdown millions of businesses and implement stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of the virus.

A majority (56 per cent) of Americans also said they would be willing to get vaccinated in the latest poll, though that number dropped significantly since May, when 66 per cent of those surveyed said they would try to get vaccinated.

The outlook for the future remained grim among a majority of Americans, with 55 per cent saying “the worst is yet to come” in terms of the coronavirus outbreak. Just 40 per cent of respondents felt that the worst was behind the country in the outbreak.