Nearly twice as many Biden voters taking Thanksgiving precautions over Trump supporters, poll reveals

Mr Trump’s supporters are twice as likely to be mixing with more than three households over the holiday

Biden voters were nearly twice as likely to take precautions against the coronavirus this Thanksgiving compared to supporters of Donald Trump, according to a new US survey.

Slightly more than half of voters (51 per cent) who identified as supporters of the president-elect said they planned to mark the holiday in private, the survey by Insider and SurveyMonkey last week revealed.

By comparison, Trump supporters were 1.75 times less likely to do so, with only 29 per cent saying they would limit celebrations to their own household.

 According to Insider, an average of 43 per cent of people nationwide said they would take precautions.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that mixing between households could increase the spread of Covid-19, with more than a million Covid-19 cases reported across the US since last week.

Some 89,000 Americans are currently hospitalised with the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 1,600 American lives daily, since the pandemic began, according to analysis by the Associated Press.

“As cases continue to increase rapidly across the United States, the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate at home with the people you live with,” CDC advice states.

“Gatherings with family and friends who do not live with you can increase the chances of getting or spreading COVID-19 or the flu.”

Despite that advice, around 34 per cent of respondents to the Insider poll said they would mix with three or more households over the holiday. Trump supporters surveyed were found to be twice as likely to do so.  

Many health experts have warned that Thanksgiving will accelerate transmission rates, with Dr John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor, warning of a "humanitarian crisis" in the weeks ahead.

"If we layer in travel and large indoor gatherings which we know are drivers of transmission, we expect to see a massive surge on top of an already dire situation," he told ABC News.

Those remarks were similar to Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, who warned on Wednesday that “you will see a surge superimposed upon a surge”.