The number of Americans who said that fear of contracting COVID-19 was keeping them from working has dropped in the past month as vaccination rates continue to rise across the country, Axios reports.
The news outlet notes that "fear of falling ill or spreading the virus has been the primary reason millions of Americans have either left their jobs or halted their job searches" during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most recent results from the U.S. Census’ Household Pulse Survey from the end of last month and the beginning of this one found that 2.48 million Americans are not working because they are "concerned about getting or spreading the coronavirus."
About 2.82 million said the same in the previous results, which were collected at the end of June and the beginning of July. The peak came in July 2020, when 6.24 million said that concerns about contracting COVID-19 were keeping them from working.
The number of fully vaccinated people across the country increased by 7.4 million over the course of July, reaching 164.9 million as of Aug. 2.
Morning Consult notes that recent polling shows most workers, 55%, feel comfortable returning to the office, though this is a drop from about 73% three weeks ago. Over half of employees who are currently working remotely would quit if they were asked to return to working in an office.
The Household Pulse Survey was conducted from June 4, 2020 to August 2, 2021, with the most recent survey results being taken from July 21 to August 2, 2021, from 64,652 responses to invitations sent to 1,042,642 households.