By contrast, 83 percent of the 1,161 respondents said they would see the pandemic as a thing of the past once the virus evolves into a less severe, occasional presence in life — not unlike the seasonal flu. That’s a view taken by many public health experts and the countries that are pushing for “living with covid” policies once the virus becomes endemic, or at “a point at which the infection is no longer unpredictably disruptive.” (The World Health Organization in January warned against currently treating covid as an endemic disease.)

Seventy-three percent of respondents said getting vaccinated was important to ending the pandemic. Democrats were almost three times more likely than Republicans to believe that widespread immunization is essential.