President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement last week that he’d been taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a safeguard against contracting Covid-19 spurred alarm in the medical community, where scientists have cast doubt on the drug’s ability to treat coronavirus and raised warnings about its safety.
But despite weeks in which Trump has fervently pushed hydroxychloroquine as a potential miracle drug, a new poll found that more voters came down on the side of scientists.
In the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, out Tuesday, only 23 percent of registered voters said they support using hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, down from 29 percent who supported the therapy in April. And only 11 percent said they are likely to take the drug themselves.
The poll, which was conducted after Trump’s revelation last week, found that almost three-quarters of voters were aware of that news.
“President Trump’s disclosure of taking hydroxychloroquine made a splash, with news reaching a sizable majority of voters. Still, the renewed buzz around the antimalarial drug didn’t result in increased support for its use as a treatment for coronavirus,” said Tyler Sinclair, vice president of Morning Consult.
The president initially emerged as a champion of hydroxychloroquine early on in the pandemic, boosted by allies in conservative media. Then, last week, Trump said he'd made the decision to take the drug himself as a prophylactic — because, he claimed, “what do you have to lose?”
That dynamic could have contributed to the intense partisan split in the new survey.
Just 11 percent of Democrats and 2-in-10 independents said they supported the treatment. By contrast, 42 percent of Republicans said they support use of hydroxychloroquine, with about half saying they “strongly support” use of the drug for coronavirus patients.
The survey was also partially conducted after one of the largest observational studies of the drug to date found no evidence hydroxychloroquine treats coronavirus and was linked to increased rates of mortality and cardiac issues among hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
The findings mirror initial data from other observational studies, which have shown the drug has limited or no proven benefits for coronavirus patients, and may even be harmful when used in certain combinations. And on Monday, the World Health Organization hit pause on its use of the drug as part of a global study of potential coronavirus treatments while it reviews safety data.
Though the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus in March (the drug has been approved for decades to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis) despite sparse evidence that it could work, it later warned against using the therapy outside clinical trials, citing potential “life threatening” heart problems.
Tuesday's poll found voters were even less likely to take hydroxychloroquine themselves, with only 11 percent saying they would be very or somewhat likely to ingest the drug to treat coronavirus. A combined 46 percent said they were unlikely to take the drug, and 31 percent said they didn't know or had no opinion.
The poll also found declining opinions of Trump's job performance. His approval rating slid to just 40 percent, a slight downtick of just 1 point from last week, but down 4 points over the past four weeks. The majority of voters, 57 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted online from May 22 to 26 among a national sample of 1,986 registered voters. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company, delivering insights on what people think in real time by surveying tens of thousands across the globe every single day.
More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents: Toplines | Crosstabs
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Poll: Despite Trump's endorsement, few voters support use of hydroxycholoroquine - Politico
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