Two Covid Americas

Covid’s starkly different impact on the young and old has been one of the virus’s defining characteristics. It tends to be mild for children and younger adults but is often severe for the elderly. More than three-quarters of all U.S. Covid deaths have occurred among people 65 and older.

Given these patterns, it seems obvious that older Americans should be more fearful of Covid than younger Americans. Yet they’re not.

That’s one of the striking findings from a new poll that Morning Consult, a survey firm, has conducted for this newsletter: Old and young people express similar concern about their personal risk from Covid. By some measures, young people are actually more worried.

The most plausible explanation for this pattern is political ideology. Older Americans, as a group, currently lean to the right, while younger generations lean to the left. And no other factor influences Covid attitudes as strongly as political ideology, the poll shows.