Fewer Americans than ever during COVID pandemic still social distancing, poll finds

Fewer Americans are social distancing and wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its updated guidance on masks.

A new Gallup poll released Monday found that 22% of Americans are social distancing from non-household people, which is down from 30% in April and 48% in January.

Forty percent of respondents said they were “still isolating partially or a little” and 38% — the highest percentage to date — said they weren’t social distancing at all.

The survey was conducted May 18-23 with a sample size of 3,572 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The CDC updated its guidance last month to say vaccinated Americans can go without masks in most situations, including indoor settings.

Fewer Americans are wearing masks after the announcement, with 79% saying they’ve worn a mask in the past week outside their home, which is down from 86% in April and 90% every month since July 2020.

Mask-wearing is down among all groups of people, including those who are partially vaccinated or don’t plan to get vaccinated. The percentage of vaccinated people wearing masks has gone down 5 percentage points since April, while there was a change of 16 percentage points for partially vaccinated Americans.

Eighty-eight percent of Americans who plan to get vaccinated said in the poll that they’re wearing masks — down from 95% in April. Forty-nine percent of people who don’t plan to get vaccinated are wearing masks, which is down from 59% who wore masks last month.

Visits to different types of stores and establishments have also gone up. Sixty percent of respondents said they went to a grocery store in the past day, 35% said they went to a different type of store and 24% said they visited a pharmacy — all are up 6 percentage points from April, according to Gallup.

The share of people who have gone to restaurants has increased 8 percentage points to 38% and around two-thirds are now dining in, which is up 4 percentage points from April.

However, Americans are still avoiding attending events with large crowds and taking public transportation, among other activities:

• 44% of respondents avoided events with large crowds in the last week.
• 40% avoided traveling by public transportation or airplane.
• 34% avoided going to public places, including restaurants and stores.
• 26% avoided small gatherings with friends or family.

The U.S. has more than 33.3 million coronavirus cases and 597,000 deaths as of Monday, June 7, according to Johns Hopkins University.

This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 12:48 PM with the headline "Fewer Americans than ever during COVID pandemic still social distancing, poll finds."