The United States entered a new phase in the fight against the coronavirus this week, with the first full approval of a vaccine.

       The approval, though, comes at a time when political divides over the vaccines and many other coronavirus-related issues remain as large as ever — if not larger. The White House is now pushing for employers to mandate inoculation with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while many high-profile Republicans are not only resisting that but have ratcheted up the battle against a far-less-intrusive mitigation technique: mask mandates.

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       Polarization is nothing new in the United States, and it has only become worse in recent decades. But it’s worth taking stock of how unusual this internal feuding is over an issue of such national import. There are large protests in other countries such as France over vaccine passes, after all! Maybe we’re not so uniquely divided?

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       Turns out we are, though — by several metrics.

       The Pew Research Center recently conducted a study of how the residents of various countries view their coronavirus restrictions. The takeaway: The political split in the United States is bigger than in any of the 10 other countries surveyed.

       While 52 percent of the political right said there should have been fewer restrictions on public activity during the pandemic, just 7 percent of the left said the same.

       That 45-point gap was more than twice as large as in any other country surveyed. And it’s driven by the right; the gap between the center and the right was also more than twice as big as anywhere else. In no other country was the right nearly so unhappy about the restrictions.

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       That’s particularly striking given that the United States’ restrictions have generally been less severe than those of most other developed countries, according to Oxford University’s government response stringency index. That accounts for almost all countries included in the Pew survey.

       The findings echo a similar poll Pew conducted in 13 countries in the summer of 2020. It asked how both supporters and opponents of the party in power viewed their country’s coronavirus response; the gap was again larger in the United States (when the Trump administration was in charge) than anywhere else.

       In every other country, support for the government’s response increased, but not in the United States.

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       The story is similar on other measures, especially vaccines.

       In January, the World Economic Forum commissioned a poll on vaccine hesitancy in 15 countries. At the time, the United States was on the low end, but not terribly out of step. The poll asked people whether they would get the vaccine when it became available to them, and the United States ranked 10th out of 15, at 71 percent. It was still ahead of Japan, South Africa, Russia, France and even Germany.

       But this was early in the vaccination efforts, and vaccine hesitancy in the United States has proved unusual for a couple of reasons: Its staying power, and the reasons behind it.

       Imperial College London and YouGov have tracked unwillingness to get vaccinated in many countries over time. In February, only France (42 percent) had a higher unwillingness than the United States (33 percent) among the 13 countries included. Their data also showed both Japan and Germany ahead of the United States, unlike the earlier WEF poll (which asked a slightly different question).

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       And as things progressed, the United States’ vaccine skeptics remained more entrenched. By last month, France still brought up the rear, but it was basically on par (30 percent unwilling) with the United States (29 percent).

       The results were similar in another poll conducted of several countries last month. It found the United States with the second-highest vaccine hesitancy race among 15 countries surveyed — lower only than Russia, where hesitancy toward its Sputnik V vaccine traces to a whole lot of relevant history. Hesitancy also declined in the United States by only four points since April, compared with an average of 12 points for the other countries. (Only one country had a smaller decline: the United Kingdom, which has been one of the most pro-vaccine countries from the start.)

       Another study released last month in the journal Nature Medicine compared the United States to lower- and middle-income countries. It was again found to be more vaccine resistant than all of them with the exception of Russia.

       A big reason for the difference? Unlike in those countries, there was much less concern about becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus. Americans were also less convinced about the vaccines’ effectiveness.

       That latter reason is a thread worth pulling out. That same WEF poll in January also asked people about their reasons for resisting the vaccines. Fully 11 percent of Americans said they would not get vaccinated because they were against vaccines in general — more than in any other country. Fully 3 in 10 cited either that reason, the vaccines’ supposed lack of effectiveness or the supposedly low risk from the virus. That was the highest of any country.

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       In other words, even in a survey that at the time showed the United States not hugely out of step with other countries on vaccine hesitancy, there was evidence that its hesitancy might be more difficult to break down. And that has been borne out in the months since.

       As have plenty of other splits that have rendered the United States coronavirus response among the most exceptional — in terms of divisions — in the world.