The class gap in pandemic attitudes and experiences

Attitudes towards COVID-19 and lived experiences during the pandemic depend greatly on people’s level of education. We extend a previous analysis of vaccine hesitancy in relation to formal education to include a longer time frame in 2021-2022. We then explore additional indicators from the COVID Tends and Impacts Survey for the United States. The timelines of social and health-related activities and constraints, COVID-19 testing and vaccination decisions, information-seeking behaviours, as well as trust and beliefs often vary markedly between education-defined classes. Many indicators present a significant gap between the attitudes and experiences of college graduates and those with post-graduate studies on one hand, and college drop-outs and those with only high school education on the other hand. This pattern suggest that the academic and professional-managerial classes, which supply the vast majority of societal decision-makers, may be ill-equipped to understand and respect the needs and worries of the working classes in an emergency situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Given growing concerns about the benefit-harm balance of many pandemic response measures, it also appears that the less-educated groups displayed a decorum of common sense and often “got it right” when they were skeptical of, or outright opposed, restrictions and public health measures.