Polls show Ohioans confident in state’s response to coronavirus

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Two polls show Ohioans give Gov. Mike DeWine and his team high marks for how he has been handling the pandemic crisis.

A new Baldwin Wallace poll released Monday found 85% of Ohioans approve of DeWine’s handling of the coronavirus emergency and 50% approve of how President Donald Trump has handled it.

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Eight in 10 Ohioans said DeWine acted at the appropriate time and 40% said Trump acted at the right time, the survey found.

The same poll found Ohioans are worried: 80% are anxious about the virus; 47% believe the worst is yet to come; 94% are concerned about the impact on the economy; half disagree with DeWine’s plan to start reopening the state economy on May 1.

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A new poll from Ohio State University shows change in how Ohioans view the pandemic in April versus their views of it in March. The percentage of Ohioans who perceived they were at risk of catching the virus decreased in April but these same Ohioans were more likely now to think an infection, if they did fall ill, would seriously impact their health.

In mid-March, 27% of Ohioans rated their risk of catching the virus as high but that tapered off to 21% in early April. Those who thought an infection would seriously affect their health increased from 29% to 39%, the poll found.

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Holding steady in the March and April poll were Ohioans’ confidence in state officials to control the pandemic. In both polls, nearly nine in 10 said they were somewhat or very confident in state officials and roughly three-quarters felt confident in local officials. But confidence in the federal government’s response to the pandemic dropped from 45% in the first poll in March to 39% in the April poll.

A little more than half of Ohioans thought the virus would be under control in Ohio within three months but only 28% believed it’d be under control nationally in that time.

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