New Pew study finds increasing public criticism, confusion over COVID-19 response in U.S.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Americans are increasingly critical of the response to COVID-19 from elected officeholders and public health officials, a new study by the Pew Research Center has found.

Six in ten Americans now describe the job of the White House to respond to the coronavirus as only fair or poor, said the study.

Amid debates over how to address the surge in cases driven by the Omicron variant, the study said that "confusion is now the most common reaction to shifts in public health guidance."

In specific, 60 percent of U.S. adults say they have felt confused as a result of changes to public health officials' recommendations on how to slow the spread of the coronavirus, up 7 percentage points since last summer.