Two-Thirds of Republicans Believe COVID Coverages Are Exaggerated, Reports

Pew Research Center recently released the results of a survey, which pointed to an interesting observation: A sizeable percentage of respondents, who identified themselves as Republicans, believed that the severity of the pandemic was overestimated in the media. The survey came by after the United States completed three months of wading through the pandemic.

As per a news report, 38% of the participants felt that the news coverages blew things out of proportion while reporting the outbreak in June, as compared to the 29 percent who thought along similar lines, in the past two months. While 86% of the participants alleged that they followed the news “fairly” closely, almost half of all the respondents, suggested that they trusted the data published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention as “the most reliable.”

Meanwhile, a whopping 64% of respondents believed that the public health agency largely released accurate facts. The center hasn’t released a comment regarding the survey’s findings as yet.

Republicans and Democrats have had a difference of opinion pertaining to policy decisions -- face mask requirements, business closures and stay-at-home orders -- that came through in response to the outbreak.

A volley of state governors including Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has urged American citizens to keep political affiliations aside while discussing and dealing with issues concerning the outbreak and virus transmission. The United States of America finds itself in the top spot among the countries to be worse affected by the pandemic.

The novel coronavirus has infected over two million people residing in the U.S., while the death toll stands at 129,000. President Donald Trump amassed severe backlash for propagating the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, as the anti-viral drug has shown no results, and is largely perceived to be as effective as a placebo drug.

The U.S. has reportedly exhausted almost all the stocks of Remdesivir for the next three months, much to the shock of experts’ world over.

Manufactured by Gilead, Remdesivir is the first drug to have been permitted by licensing authorities in the U.S. for treating COVID-19. Remdesivir was greenlit for emergency authorization after several trials indicated to the fact that the drug helped patients recover faster from the highly contagious virus. The first 140,000 doses, supplied globally to drug trials, have been exhausted.