Navigating Coronavirus — July 1

5 min readJul 1, 2020

In today’s email, we have numbers from a new Navigator poll revealing deep public concern about the coronavirus outbreak and record high disapproval of Trump’s handling of it.

Read on for today’s Navigating Coronavirus…

It’s been 125 days since President Trump said we’d soon have zero cases in the U.S. We now have 2.7 million cases and more than 130,000 deaths.

TOP TREND …

NEW NAVIGATOR POLL >> Disapproval of Trump’s handling of the pandemic has hit a record high. 58% now disapprove, a new high in our tracking.

THE LATEST

Message guidance on the latest developments with President Trump’s handling of the crisis.

1. TRUMP HAS GIVEN UP ON TRYING TO STOP THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS AS IT SPINS OUT OF CONTROL.

As the nation’s leading health experts warned of the dire state of the country, President Trump is missing in action, pretending like this crisis is over.

NYT: New U.S. virus cases have gone up 80 percent in the past two weeks.
CNN: “36 states show rise in COVID-19 cases”
CNBC: “CDC says U.S. has ‘way too much virus’ to control pandemic as cases surge across country”
Rolling Stone: “COVID-19 Is Surging. Donald Trump’s Response Is Shrinking”
“At a time when national leadership, consistent communication, and a well-defined strategy are needed more than ever, doctors, scientists, and public-health experts say the Trump administration is missing in action, content to play a supporting role and to let states and cities take the lead. All the while, President Trump spreads misinformation about testing (‘If we did very little testing, we wouldn’t have the most cases’) and insists the pandemic will just ‘fade away.’”
FEMA has “1,000 fewer employees currently assigned to support COVID-19 work than there were at the peak of the agency’s response.”

2. TRUMP REFUSES TO LISTEN TO EXPERTS AND IT IS COSTING THE COUNTRY.

Ignoring the experts, Trump spent months failing to take coronavirus seriously before pushing to reopen before it was safe — now, the pandemic is an even deeper crisis, and Americans want more aggressive social distancing to contain the outbreaks. In short: Trump’s reopening push is totally backfiring.

NEW NAVIGATOR DATA >> 59% say the worst is yet to come in this crisis, as about half of Americans want more aggressive social distancing measures while just 1-in-10 want to relax them.

Trump is also defying experts’ pleas on wearing masks, something he single handedly created a political divide over.

Mercury News: “Fauci, Redfield on outbreak: ‘Masks are extremely important’
Fauci: “we recommend masks for everyone…masks are extremely important.”
Redfield: ““It is critical that we all take the personal responsibility to slow the transmission of Covid-19 and embrace the universal use of face coverings.”

3. TRUMP IS LEAVING AMERICAN FAMILIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES IN A CRISIS HE CREATED.

For a third month in a row, American families are facing rent and mortgage payments during Trump’s recession — a crisis created because he refused to take coronavirus seriously. And at midnight, Trump’s largely chaotic PPP program ended without a plan on what comes next to keep small businesses alive. While other countries have been able to safely reopen their economies, the U.S. could not be further from flattening the curve, leaving months of uncertainty ahead. Yet Trump and Republicans refuse to take action.

Marketplace: “With July rents due, renters brace for evictions”
AP: “Business owners and advocacy groups complain that the money in the Paycheck Protection Program was not fully put to work because the program created obstacles that stopped countless small businesses from applying. For those that did seek loans, the ever-changing application process proved to be an exercise in futility.”

NEW NAVIGATOR TRACKING NUMBERS . . .

TODAY’S POLLING DECK >> HERE

The number of Americans who say the “worst is yet to come” in the pandemic is clearly spiking. Over the past 3 weeks, the number is up 15 points — to 59% — the highest mark in two-and-a-half months.
MORE >> Similarly, Americans are increasingly saying we need “more aggressive” social distancing — that number is up 17 points in 3 weeks.

As Trump continues to ignore the current outbreak, pessimism over when the pandemic may subside is also increasing. When it comes to when Americans believe things will “return to normal,” the number who say not until 2021 is up 29 points since mid-April, as the number who say within the next month or few months has dropped 32 points.

Americans increasingly are concerned by reopening, even as Trump has championed that we do so. In states seeing spiking outbreaks, 56% now say their state is moving too quickly to reopen, up 8 points from last week, as 63% overall say we should reverse course on reopening if their state were to see a surge in cases.

As nearly 60% remain more concerned about coronavirus’ health impacts vs. economic ones, Americans are seeing large gatherings, refusal to take safety precautions like wearing masks, and reopening too quickly as top contributors to the virus’ spread.