As the United States enters what is for most Americans their fifth week of a virtual national lockdown, the coronavirus pandemic has rooted itself into the public psyche. Recent polls show Americans taking the public health scare very seriously and being fearful of the virus’ spread if social distancing restrictions are relaxed too quickly.

The United States currently has 580,000 cases of the coronavirus, purportedly the most in the world. The country is approaching a death count of 24,000. Growth of the virus, previously considered exponential, has successfully been tapered off in recent days. While it will take more time to know for sure if the pandemic has peaked, public health officials are discussing the possibility of the country beginning to reopen in May.

This is the minimum preferred by a large majority of Americans, according to a new poll by USA Today and Ipsos. Two-thirds of Americans, 69%, support maintaining the economic lockdown until at least the end of April. People would continue to be required to stay at home, excluding those performing “essential” work. Only 21% of Americans support lessening restrictions and opening up non-essential businesses before May.

While there is a margin of difference between the political parties, majorities of both support the continuation of restrictions. 62% of Republicans take this stance, despite President Donald Trump’s earlier eagerness to reopen the country. Roughly 80% of Democrats, whose representatives have repeatedly called for a federal lockdown plan instead of leaving it to the individual states, support the measures.

A separate poll, conducted by Gallup, showed that Americans will continue to distance themselves even after the government ends its official restrictions. Another two-thirds of individuals asked, 71%, said they wait to see what happens with the coronavirus before resuming their previous, regular daily activities—including interacting with people in public. Only 20% of Americans said they would return to normalcy immediately upon completion of the quarantine. 10% answered that they would continue to limit their contact with others “indefinitely.”

Majorities of every subgroup and demographic answered that they would wait and see what happens, even if there were differences on the margins. For instance, when it comes to returning to normal life immediately, men were more likely to say yes than women (by a margin of 5%), people who live in small towns and rural areas were more likely to say yes than city dwellers (by a margin of 8%), and young people age 18-29 were more likely to say yes than the elderly, aged 64 and older (by a margin of 7%).

The biggest margin of difference was among political views. Republicans were 20% more likely than Democrats to say they’d return to their normal lives immediately, although even among the GOP this minority view only peaked at 31%.

Hunter DeRensis is the senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.

Image: Reuters.