Poll: Wisconsinites worry more this month about getting “seriously ill” from COVID-19

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - A new Marquette Law School poll released Wednesday shows that more people are very worried about getting sick from COVID-19 this month than were in September.

About 27% say they are worried now, as compared to 21% of those in September. The poll noted that 21% of people say they are not at all worried about getting ill from COVID-19, which is virtually the same as the 19% who thought this way in September.

The poll shows indicated the highest percentage for people who were “very worried” about contracting COVID-19 and becoming seriously ill from it was in March, at about 30% of respondents. The percentage of people with that ideology has fluctuated since June, while the number of those who are not worried at all has stayed stably near 20%.

	Very Worried	Somewhat Worried	Not Very Worried	Not Worried At All	Already had COVID-19	Don’t Know
3/24-29	30	40	18	11	0	0
5/3-7	25	35	20	19	0	0
6/14-18	19	36	21	24	1	1
8/4-9	27	36	17	19	1	0
8/30-9/3	21	39	19	19	1	0
9/30-10/4	27	34	16	21	2	0

Marquette also found that half of the respondents believe the pandemic will continue for another year or more before things get better, while 20% think things will be “under control” within the next three months.

Questions were added to the poll after President Trump announced he had COVID-19 early Friday morning. One-third of respondents believe that the president is experiencing mild symptoms of COVID-19, while slightly more said they don’t know how ill he is yet.

Marquette Law School polled 805 registered Wisconsin voters by phone from Sept. 30-Oct. 4 to acquire these numbers. The margin of error is +/-4.2% for the full sample. There were 700 likely voters polled with a margin of error of +/-4.6%.

There were five items added to the survey once President Trump announced his positive COVID-19 test and those questions were asked from Oct. 2-4 to 344 registered voters with a margin of error of +/-6.4%.