Morgan and her husband plan to put their masks back on at the airport when they fly to Florida to celebrate her birthday later this week. She said they were extra cautious early in the pandemic because her husband’s heart disease made him more vulnerable to severe illness from COVID-19 — something she’s ready to resume if another serious wave of infections hits. behavior.

“I would expect it to taper off and every change to be less viral or notable,” Morgan said. “But I’m worried that something new will happen.”

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Experts say the coronavirus isn’t going away, and most Americans recognize it’s here to stay. in January, AP-NORC Poll Only 15% of Americans say the pandemic will end when COVID-19 is largely eliminated. Most said they expected the pandemic to end when it was mostly a mild virus.

But that may not be the case at the moment. Experts still say the new variant could soon spark another rising wave of infections in the United States. Still, scientists are keeping a close eye on omicron’s hyperinfectious derivatives, which have seen rising cases in parts of Europe and Asia, as well as delta-omicron hybrids. Infections with this variant appear to be rare so far.

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Sonia Montoya of Albuquerque, New Mexico, isn’t taking chances. The 65-year-old bookkeeper still works away from her office colleagues, ordering meals from any restaurant and making sure to wear a mask when shopping or going to church. Six relatives and friends of Montoya, who have died from the virus, said she was still very worried about getting sick even though she was vaccinated.

“It’s come back again before, and I have a feeling we’re going to do it again if we’re not careful,” Montoya said. “Yes, it’s slowing down, but there’s a lot of stupid people out there, especially those Young people who don’t think it’s serious.”

AP-NORC polls have consistently shown that vaccinated people are more worried about infection and more likely to take preventive measures than unvaccinated people since vaccines were widely used by the U.S. public. Vaccinated people are still more likely than unvaccinated people to say they always or often avoid non-essential travel (44% to 29%), stay away from large groups (51% to 32%) and wear masks around other people (49% to 26%).

But new polls show that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people are less likely to take these precautions on a regular basis over the past two months. Likewise, both Democrats and Republicans were less likely to say they were taking protections as often than they were in January.

Jason Newman of Greenville, Kentucky, said he never wears a mask unless necessary, that he doesn’t worry about eating out and has never been vaccinated. He said he had tested positive for COVID-19 twice but had no symptoms on both occasions.

The 43-year-old postal worker said he had noticed in recent months that more and more people appeared to be treating the virus his way.

“It’s always going to be here anyway, because they can’t eradicate it,” Newman said. “I think, in general, they’re over.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,082 adults was conducted March 17-21 using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents was plus or minus 4 percentage points.