A new Monmouth poll finds that while a majority of New Jerseyans are still concerned about the effect the coronavirus could have on them or a family member, they are still resistant to taking steps to combat the virus.
Additionally, Gov. Phil Murphy continues to poll above 60% in regards to how he has handled the pandemic over the last three years.
In a survey released Jan. 24, the number of Garden State residents who report testing positive for COVID has surpassed a majority. But fewer than one in four have received the bivalent booster shot that became available last fall and, by a two to one margin, oppose bringing back mask and social distancing guidelines.
56% Test Positive
The number of state residents who report testing positive for COVID has risen to 56% in the current poll from 38% nearly a year ago, an increase reported in every demographic group the Jersey Shore polling outfit examined. A total of 57% of respondents (27% very and 30% somewhat) stated they were concerned about someone in their family becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus outbreak. This level of concern is up slightly from 50% in April 2022, but lower than the about two in three in 2021.
But the rise in cases and concerns has not resulted in a willingness to return to the more controversial steps enacted to previously help slow the spread of the virus. Just 32% of Garden State residents support reinstituting general face mask and social distancing guidelines in the state, while 63% are opposed.
Living With COVID
While these results are virtually unchanged from last year, this is a reversal from polls taken in 2021 when 6 in 10 backed bringing back these measures. Support for reinstituting COVID guidelines is what one would expect when it comes to political identification—50% of Democrats who support bringing back social distancing measures to just 26% of Independents and 15% of Republicans who feel the same.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, summed up the polls finding as “New Jersey’s attitude seems to be COVID is here to stay and we’ve just got to live with it.”
Results are mixed for the vaccine campaign state official have waged—82% of respondents said that they have received at least one dose of the vaccine with 66% saying they received a booster shot. But only 23% of the adult population has gotten the bivalent booster which became available last September.
Bypassing the Booster
In breaking down the demographics in regards to the bivalent booster, 33% of those age 55 and older have gotten it versus fewer than 1 in 5 adults under 55 years old. Uptake of the new booster is more common among Democrats (35%) than among Independents (18%) and Republicans (15%).
On top of the nearly 1 in 4 who have gotten the new booster, another 16% say they are very likely to get it. At the other end of the spectrum, 35% say they are not at all likely to get it. Garden State residents are only slightly more willing to get the bivalent booster than all Americans based on a Fall 2022 Monmouth national polling.
“New Jerseyans may be vaxxed out at this point,” offered Murray. “Based on past findings, most of those who will get the new booster have already done so. If you don’t feel you are very likely to do it, you almost certainly won’t. That means it’s probable that less than half of the state population will be covered by the bivalent booster.”
Murphy Results
As for the politics of the coronavirus, Gov. Murphy continues to receive broadly positive reviews for his handling of the pandemic as 66% responded he has done a good job versus 26% giving him a thumbs down. Approval of Murphy’s COVID actions come from 91% of Democrats, 61% of Independents, and 37% of Republicans.
Monmouth’s Murray pointed out the governor’s positive rating for handling COVID has never dropped below 60% since the pandemic started three years ago.
“More than a handful of Republicans give Murphy props for how he’s dealt with the pandemic, which is saying something in the current political environment. It’s just not the most important issue for state residents of any partisan stripe right now,” said Murray.
It never ceases to amaze me how little some New Jerseyans understand the science behind protecting the public health from diseases. Here, we have a proven effective vaccine that prevents severe outcomes, and yet so few are taking advantage of that opportunity. Simultaneously, we also have effective masks to protect the public from infection, and yet no one wants to take on the slightest inconvenience that can help protect not only individuals, but all of us, as when people get unnecessarily sick and go into the hospital, they clog up the entire healthcare system.
Let go of your cognitive dissonance, accept the fact that the pandemic is ongoing, and may be ongoing for the indefinite foreseeable future. Living with the inconveniences of vaccines, masks and other similar measures won’t kill us or disable us. COVID will.
It never ceases to amaze me how little some New Jerseyans understand the science behind protecting the public health from bioweapons.
Bravo howardfrederics!!!!
Masks do nothing, the vaccines have on net been a complete failure and have injured and killed thousands of people. Lockdowns were a failure, school closures were unncessary.
Mr. Fredrics is brainwashed.
THe vaccines are preventing people from achieving herd immunity and are putting artificial selection pressure on the virus to mutate into new variants.
This was predicted and is now happening.
The vaccines create toleraance and are making people MORE likley to get infected and get sick
Testing of asymptomatic people is useless
Covid is not dangerous to otherwise young healthy people. There is no way to avoid being exposed. Hundreds of thousands of people died unnecessarily because they were denied access to and info about effective early outpatient treatment.
Every government health authority has been captured by the pharma industry and is working as a defacto marketing arm for the vaccine companies
The democratic party with its sychophantic friends in the mainstream media , used its control over major state institutions and its influence over huge sectors of our society to weaponize covid into a political wedge issue to prevent Donald trump from winning a second term
Covid cases were exaggerated by inaccurate false positive PCR tests
Hospital admissions were grossly overcounted . Deaths with covid were reported as FROM covid
The vax doesnt stop infection spread and transmission so there was never any justification for mandates
fauci was wrong and lied about everything
The whole covid episode represents the greatest failure of gov and the greatest fraud in human history
@Dirk — Thank you Mr. Q-Anon conspiracy theorist. What’s next from you – space lasers?
Every single thing you said is an outright falsehood. Literally 180º from the truth.
Bravo howardfredrics, when the facts are not on your side, ad hominem attacks are the best approach–especially using the “conspiracy theorist” slander.
“Every single thing you [Dirk] said is an outright falsehood,” blusters howard. Really?
Dirk is correct when he says that Covid is not dangerous to otherwise young healthy people (anyone can look up the CDC stats on Covid deaths by age–which is apparently beyond the capabilities of Mr. Fredrics–and that more kids die from drowning than Covid).
Dirk is also correct when he says that thousands died when they were denied effective early treatment (the late Dr. Zelenko alone provided early treatment to over 1,000 Covid patients and only one died; other credible physicians report similar results with early treatment; are they all lying?).
Dirk is further correct when he says that every government health authority has been captured by the pharma industry and is working as a defacto marketing arm for the vaccine companies. Everyone, it seems (other than howardfredrics), knows that the FDA/CDC and Big Pharma are literal revolving doors for one another, and that the CDC owns scores of patents for vaccines (there’s no conflict of interest there [rolls eyes]).
And finally, Dirk is correct that “Deaths with covid were reported as FROM covid.” Even Dr. Leana Wen, a big supporter of the Covid jabs, finally had to fess up about this one. (Better late than never: the CDC quietly admitted two years ago that only 6% of the “Covid deaths” they were reporting were from Covid ALONE.)
The truth is finally emerging, despite the full court effort to suppress it for the last 3 years. It doesn’t help the Covidian Cult when a majority of Americans now know someone who has suffered significant injury or death from the jabs, especially those otherwise young, healthy people who are dropping dead suddenly. The Covid scam is collapsing. The class action law suits are being geared up. The truth cannot be hidden forever.
@James Hidden truths? More conspiracy theories and falsehoods.
It’s not an ad hominem attack to criticize someone for relying on political conspiracy theories and falsehoods.
Refresh yourself on what an ad hominem attack is.
This article is HILARIOUS! It plays the people of NJ like idiots. We aren’t ‘worried’ about people dying enough to bring back the anti-mental health measures because the death rate has ALWAYS been 1% or less (and age stratified where healthy people under 50 are at virtually zero risk). We all realize that the measures we took were not only ineffective, but terrible for mental health, substance abuse, and learning for our children.
There’s a reason why only 30% of people have taken the new booster; because the people aren’t dumb. They realize all of these vaccines were based on previous strains and not only don’t prevent contraction, but as admitted by Pfizer, don’t prevent transmission. Another interesting fact is how less than 10% of parents, globally, have given their kids the vax. We now KNOW (as many have always known) that naturally acquired immunity is VASTLY SUPERIOR to the Big Pharma “indemnified of all liability” shots that have no long term studies.
All of this data is available with a google search. I feel SO SORRY for people like Howard that live in fear. It has no merit that esteemed virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists, and evolutionary biologists have finally been recognized for their theories which were first lambasted as disinformation but now agreed upon as truth by sources such as the Washington Post. (Howard, you can look up that they wrote about how the so-called ‘vaccines’ most likely caused the variants, something Geert Vanden Bossche, a vaccinologist predicted this would happen.)
@Dirk @James, @Don
Your information regarding the dangers and risks of COVID is false. Please read:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/26/covid-roulette-clean-air-ventilation-long-covid?fbclid=IwAR3ONcUia57a-jcLvTMj-sblnEDGnH6YaXQ7QzHIoLe9KU3KPDTFCcb0IyA
Thanks @howardfrecdrics. I read the opinion piece in the Guardian. It’s quite ironic how the top of the guardian website showed me an ad that it’s sponsored by Pfizer. You can’t make this stuff up.
Meanwhile, did you read the news that the UK joined other European countries in that they will no longer be offering booster shots to healthy people under 50? They recognize that most of the world has had the disease and now possess naturally acquired immunity. They recognize that there is more risk in multiple shots for healthy individuals with naturally acquired immunity than without it. There are actually studies showing that the more shots you take, the more it affects your immune system’s natural response to illness.
Unfortunately you are caught up in a Big Pharma sponsored web of half-truths manipulated by the mainstream media (almost every news show on the main networks is sponsored by Pfizer).
Where in NJ do you live that you see and know of people dying after being in poorly ventilated spaces? I have children in the school system and they are on top of each other and don’t practice pristine hygiene, not one case of covid all school year. Major indoor sporting events happening every day. Where is the hysteria warranted?
BTW, 4 out of 5 doctors recommend Camels.
Don, great post. After telling us for 3 years that the jabs are “safe and effective,” here’s the CDC’s Deputy Director Dr. Tom Shimabukuro (finally) admitting that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing many “debilitating” and long lasting side effects:
https://twitter.com/healthbyjames/status/1618744304121581568
It’s only taken over 30,000 deaths and 1,000,000 adverse events reported to the CDC’s own VAERS system for them to make this admission. Note that, in the past, it took as few as THREE reported deaths for the CDC to cancel a new vaccine program. I’m sure that their failure to protect the American people in the case of the dangerous and barely tested Covid “vaccine” is just an oversight on their part.
There have not been 30,000 deaths attributed to mRNA COVID vaccines. This is a classic straw man tactic — present one piece of information e.g. the Deputy Director’s statement acknowledging reports of adverse reactions and present it alongside unsubstantiated and false assertions about deaths (and false assertions about numbers of adverse reactions).
If you are going to lie, at least attempt to provide some reliable source for those statistics.
Further to the reports of 30,000 deaths, here is the actual information from the CDC on adverse reactions, and there have not been 30,000 deaths confirmed to be caused by the vaccines. Even the initial reports of attributions of ca 16,000 deaths were not confirmed as being caused by the vaccines.
Why do you lie James? Or are you reading information from right wing conspiracy sites or other false medical “information” sites?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
Nice try Howard. I did not say the 30,000 deaths were ATTRIBUTED to the vaccine. I said the CDC shut down prior vaccines after only a handful of deaths were REPORTED to the VAERS system. The Covid vaccines have had 30,000+ deaths REPORTED to VAERS. Those are undisputable facts. You are free to conclude (to your potential detriment) that there is no connection between the reported deaths and the Covid vaccine. Many more astute people, however, are coming to the opposite conclusion.
@James – Please read the CDC site — it says ca 16,000 deaths were reported via VAERS, which is not 30,000, and, as you admit, not attributed to (meaning there is no evidence the deaths were caused by) the vaccines. Why do you keep lying?
Look at the percentage of people dying according even to reported VAERS numbers (as opposed to caused), and you’ll see that this represents a microscopic number compared with the 667,000,000 doses administered in the US. And then look at the number of deaths from COVID — >1,000,000. Don’t start with the spurious “with COVID” argument, either, because, the actual number from COVID is probably even higher than what is officially attributed as such.
howardfredrics, what part of “I did not say the 30,000 deaths were ATTRIBUTED to the vaccine” in my previous posts don’t you understand? Why do you continue to lie about what I said? (I apologize if English is not your first language.)
The 30,000+ deaths and 1,000,000+ adverse events are from WORLDWIDE reports, not just the U.S. The VAERS system was designed to provide warning signals to the CDC that a vaccine may be dangerous. With more deaths and adverse events reported for the Covid vaccine THAN ALL PREVIOUS VACCINES COMBINED, the CDC has nevertheless turned a blind eye to their own warning system and continues (along with Big Pharma and the MSM) to repeat that they are “safe and effective.” (As a result, major class action law suits are now underway for false advertising.)
The “with Covid” argument is not spurious, as its source is the CDC itself. Even Dr. Leana Wen, a big Vax Nanny, admitted as such recently. Saying that “the actual number from Covid is probably even higher than what is officially attributed as such” is pure BS and your personal wishful thinking.
@James, your biggest lie is saying 30,000 deaths were reported when the CDC says it was 16,000. That destroys your credibility. Why are you lying?
30,000 includes WORLDWIDE reported deaths:
https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
Even if it were only 16,000 (which it’s not), that’s still more than ALL the reported deaths for ALL the vaccines over the last THIRTY YEARS COMBINED.
So, keep getting those boosters, howard…
Howard has to strawman every argument. Instead of exploring the facts that clearly show there was an active campaign to suppress information on social media and to discredit esteemed scientists from Harvard, Yale and Stanford (see Great Barrington Declaration & Fauci w/ Collins emails that they were to discredit them in print) ; he focuses on minutia and uses that as a catch all.
It’s very similar to how the bought-and-sold Fact Check sites work. If you really read between the lines, they often are admitting that the claim is true, but they focus on a random piece of the puzzle instead of the actual claim. People don’t read through the entire explanation, they look at the truth-o-meter and are validated in their echo chamber.
Example: James says more people died from the covid vaccine than all other vaccines combined over a 20 year period. Howard looks at the chart and says “it’s actually a 33 year period, why are you such a liar”. As if this discredits everything else James has said. Howard may not know anything about virology and government corruption but he’s a genius when it comes to gaslighting.