A new poll revealed the challenges facing the Biden administration on Thursday, showing that only 31 percent of Americans see Dr. Anthony Fauci as a trustworthy source of COVID-19 information and just 45 percent approve of President Joe Biden's pandemic response.
Biden has seen public support plunge during the past year as successive waves of COVID variants have upended his campaign promise to beat the virus.
On Thursday he delivered an update on his response, but the NewsNation poll, conducted by Decision Desk HQ, reveals a country that distrusts him and his senior advisers.
When asked who they trusted to provide information about COVID-19 only 30.8 percent said Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser, and 15.5 percent said Biden himself.
Instead, almost two thirds said they trusted their doctor for advice, and almost half said they trusted federal health authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Only the news media fared worse than Biden and his top adviser, with barely 10 percent saying they trusted journalists.
Dr Anthony Fauci's COVIC-19 advice is trusted by less than a third of Americans, according to a poll by NewsNation/ Decision Desk HQ poll published on Thursday
Respondents said they trusted their doctor and federal agencies, but not Fauci, Biden or the news media when it came to information about COVID-19
Fauci has been a favorite target of Republicans, who accuse him of flip-flopping in his advice and of ignoring claims that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab.
Overall, Biden's handling of the pandemic gets poor reviews.
Combining the number who somewhat approve and strongly approve comes to a total 45.2 percent approval rating.
Robert Murphy, professor of infectious diseases at North Western University, said the numbers showed 'COVID fatigue.
'People are just tired of COVID,' he told NewsNation.
'They’re tired of living with it. They’re tired of the restrictions, they are tired of the problems, and they’re just basically numb to the idea of COVID.
'Many people have just turned it off.'
In fact, the poll suggested respondents had moved on to worrying about the economy instead.
More than half (51.8 percent) said they believed the pandemic would never end.
Biden's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was also panned by respondents
Biden's campaign promise to 'beat the virus' has been done by waves of new variants, including the current Omicron version which has triggered record numbers of cases
At the same time, 60.1 percent said they were very concerned about inflation and 31.8 percent said they were somewhat concerned.
Decision Desk HQ News surveyed 1,013 registered voters on Jan. 10 and the poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
The numbers represent merely the latest bad news for Biden.
A day earlier his approval ratings dropped to 33 percent, their lowest level yer in a Quinnipiac University poll, with 53 percent saying they disapprove of his performance.
The polls came after Biden tried to fire up his base last week with major speeches on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 violence and a call for action on voting rights.
But there was fresh bad news on Wednesday, with inflation pushing up to seven percent - its highest level in 40 years.
Persistent supply chain issues have left grocery shelves bare across the nation this week, drawing comparisons to conditions in the former Soviet Union and putting further upward pressure on prices.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 0.5 percent last month after surging 0.8 percent in November, with Biden apparently trying to highlight that slowing rate of growth as an achievement.
Republicans smell blood and have high hopes of winning back the House and the Senate in November's midterms.
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