A poll of 14 developed nations found majorities in most countries were pleased with how their governments had handled the coronavirus pandemic. More than 9 out of 10 respondents in Australia and Denmark said their countries have done a good job.
But there were two countries where a majority thought otherwise: the United States and Britain.
In the United States, 52 percent said they thought their government had done poorly, and 54 percent in Britain said the same.
In the United States, 77% of respondents, a far larger share than in the other countries surveyed, said the pandemic had heightened political divisions. Spain came in next, at 59%.
High levels of division are unexpected during a crisis and could affect the fight against the virus, experts say.
“Typically, a tragic event like this would have the ‘rally around the flag’ effect and increase social cohesiveness,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In five wealthy countries, a majority of respondents said their nation had becomes less divided since the pandemic hit. Twenty-five percent of Danes said their country was more divided due to the pandemic, the poll found, while 72% said it was more united.
An equal number of respondents in Britain said their country was more and less divided.
Pew said it gathered the data using nationally representative surveys of 14,276 adults from June 10 through Aug. 3, with all interviews conducted by phone. The margin of error ranged from 3.1% in South Korea to 4.2% in Belgium.
Some governments have placed heavy importance on national unity during the pandemic. In Denmark, officials have often used the word “samfundssind,” which roughly translates as the act of putting the community’s needs above one’s own, to emphasize the need for social distancing.
According to a study by Danish researcher Marianne Rathje, use of the old-fashioned word soared after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen used it during a news conference on March 11.
Trine Mogensen, a professor of immunology at Aarhus University Hospital, said there had been relatively little political disagreement over the country’s coronavirus response, in part because of the history of political cooperation in Denmark, where political parties often rule in coalitions.
The country had been able to keep the virus under control through “voluntary good behavior and keeping to the rules and very little being reinforced by law,” Mogensen said. Nearly three-quarters of Danes said their life changed little during the pandemic; the country has confirmed 623 deaths related to covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Many world leaders have seen their approval ratings rise during the pandemic. Australia’s Scott Morrison, languishing in polls at the start of the year, saw his approval ratings soar during the early stages of the spread of the coronavirus, and they have stayed high since. The country has recorded 572 covid-19 deaths.
Ian Mackay, an epidemiologist at the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre at the University of Queensland, said Australians were generally happy with the government’s action and were aware that geography played a role.
“Most Australians seem to understand that we are very lucky to live on an island, but we are also aware that early science-based actions at our borders saved the country from the sort of epidemic of disease and subsequent death we’ve watched unfold in so many other places,” he said.
Approval ratings have dropped for leaders seen to have handled the virus poorly. Popularity for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cratered in late Spring after government setbacks and scandals. Devi Sridhar, the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, told The Washington Post in June that there had been a “massive drop in public trust.” More than 40,000 people have died of the virus in Britain.
More than 175,000 have died of the virus in the United States, and President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic has received consistently negative ratings in polls. In the upcoming presidential election, the pandemic response has become a central, partisan issue.
According to Pew survey data, more than three-quarter of Republicans and independents who lean Republican say the government has done a good job during the pandemic, while a quarter of Democrats and those who lean Democratic agree.
That 51% partisan gap is far larger than that of any other nation surveyed.
Huang said that in general, political cohesion was important for fighting the coronavirus and that countries with a more unified approach, such as China and South Korea, had fought large outbreaks successfully.
“Federalism can complicate a coherent response because the decentralized structure tends to pit state and local governments against the federal governments in decision-making and policy implementation,” he said, adding that the “finger pointing between Democratic governors and the Trump administration” had compounded the problem in the United States.
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