For the first time, a majority of Democrats believe the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
Data from Gallup found 51 percent of Democrats think the pandemic has ended, an increase of 23 points since February. It's the first time since June 2021, when Gallup began asking, that a majority of Democrats said the pandemic is over. The latest numbers show 84 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of independents believe it's ended.
The survey also found that only 2 percent of U.S. adults are "very worried" about contracting the virus. Twenty-nine percent of Democrats are not worried at all about getting the virus, compared with 71 percent of Republicans.
A majority of Republicans first said they believe the pandemic is over in April 2022.
The public's concerns about the pandemic have eased as evidence has emerged suggesting the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. Republicans slammed the Biden administration for releasing a report on Friday about the origins of COVID-19 they said "obscures more than it illuminates."
The report from the director of national intelligence, which was several days past its required deadline, was intended to lay out the administration's intelligence on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its potential connections to the pandemic's origin.
"This is not sufficient. … We want the intelligence released, not their opinion about the intelligence," Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio) said. "We passed a law saying, 'Declassify it.' It's the law of the land. Release this so the American public can see it."
Researcher Chao Shao at the Wuhan Institute of Virology claimed that China deliberately developed the COVID-19 virus as a "bioweapon." He said this week that his fellow lab researchers were given different strains of coronaviruses and asked to determine which is most effective for spreading across various species.