• Posted January 30, 2025

Americans Still Consider COVID Major Public Health Threat

People still see COVID-19 as an ongoing public health threat, even though the pandemic officially ended in 2023, according to a new HealthDay/Harris Poll.

Nearly 3 in 4 people (72%) agree COVID is still a serious public health issue, including more than a third (35%) who strongly agree, the poll found.

COVID has settled into the sort of ongoing health threat already posed by the seasonal flu, which had its turn as a pandemic back in 1918, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said.

“You'll get hundreds of thousands of people hospitalized with influenza every year,” Offit told HealthDay TV. “You'll get tens of thousands of people who die every year from influenza. I think that's what COVID is now. I think this virus will be with us for decades, if not longer.”

People also are apt to respond to any symptoms they might develop, with nearly 3 in 4 (73%) saying they would take an at-home test or go to a doctor or pharmacy to get tested for COVID, the poll says.

“That 73% number is higher than I would have guessed,” Offit said.

People with symptoms of COVID -- fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, body aches -- would do better to stay home and take a rapid test, for everyone else’s sake, Offit said.

High-risk groups in particular should get tested, Offit added, so that they can receive antiviral Paxlovid to limit the severity of their infection.

“Although the pandemic is over, I think we have to understand that this is a serious infection,” Offit said. “I wish we felt the same about flu, which is also a serious infection, which people should also get vaccinated and take seriously, but we often don't.”

However, Offit also said that he doesn’t agree with recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that everyone 6 months and older get a COVID vaccine.

“We're one of only two countries that do that,” Offit noted. “Most countries -- like countries in Western Europe, Australia, the World Health Organization, Scandinavian countries -- all pretty much target high-risk groups, meaning people who have obesity or chronic lung, chronic kidney disease or neurological diseases, people who are elderly really defined as greater than 75 and people who are pregnant.”

“I think those are the groups most likely to be hospitalized if they were infected with this virus,” Offit added.

The U.S. guidelines are probably as broad as they are due to a “messaging issue,” Offit said.

“The thinking is that if we recommend it for everybody, then those high-risk groups are more likely to get it,” Offit said. “But I mean, we do have other targeted recommendations. I agree with most other countries in this world, which is we should target high-risk groups.”

The HealthDay/Harris Poll also found that:

• Of those unlikely to test for COVID, about 42% wouldn't test if their symptoms weren’t serious or severe and 28% would assume they have some other infection or illness.

• Two in 3 (66%) people who would test for COVID cite the desire to protect friends and family, and more than half (56%) say they would want to make sure it’s not some other infection.

• More than 4 in 5 (85%) said if they tested positive for COVID, they would quarantine and wear a mask.

• However, more than half (56%) don’t know the current recommended quarantine period for COVID.

The CDC now recommends that people with COVID stay away from others until at least 24 hours after their fever has ended and their symptoms also have improved.

The recommendation also asks that people mask and keep their distance from others for five days afterward.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about COVID-19.

SOURCE: HealthDay/Harris Poll, results, Jan. 30, 2025