How many Americans absolutely refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine? How many never wear masks in public? How many insist that kids shouldn’t have to cover their faces in school? And how many would oppose vaccine requirements if the hyperinfectious Delta variant surges again this winter?
Not as many as you might think.
It’s no secret that politics has infected the U.S. pandemic response, transforming matters of public health into partisan flash points. In part because conservative pundits and politicians have sowed unsubstantiated doubts about the vaccines’ safety and efficacy and resisted policies to encourage or require inoculation, America’s full-vaccination rate — 56 percent of the total population — now ranks