FINDINGS COVID TRACKER WEEK THIRTY-TWO
Welcome to week 32 of the Covid-19 tracker. Many thanks to everyone who took part. We really appreciate it.
We have noticed that the mood of our panellists is changing more rapidly that their physical health. There was a large shift in the number of you who feel angry, to a historic high of 36%. This was at 32% last week, and had been trending around the 20% mark over the summer. It climbed to 30% around 8 weeks ago, and leapt to this new high in week 32. We also saw a jump in those of you telling us you are scared. That is now showing a reading of 23%. Right back at the start of the pandemic, 30% of you were scared, but that fell away to a steadyish 12% until again, 8 weeks ago, it started to climb again. Sadly, we also recorded the largest proportion of you who told us you were feeling desperate - 11%. That figure was around 4% from the very beginning of this activity, but is showing a sharp upward trend.
There has been a less dramatic shift in those of you who have been directly affected by the virus, but the numbers are trending upward. 42% of you say your mental health has been affected. Again, this is the highest number we have seen - up from 39% the week before. It might not seem like a significant change, but we were getting a reading of 39% in week 9 of the programme, and this is the first real shift we have seen in all that time. Consequently, week 32 was the first week in which the number of you who HAVE been affected by the virus (51%) was larger than those who have not.
The health of your friends and family are also being affected more and more. 68% of you now know someone who has been tested, taken ill or passed away. This number rose quite quickly over the first four weeks of this study - from 48% to 60% - then pretty much plateaued over the summer, but the past four weeks have seen it starting to climb again. It jumped from 65% to 68% over the last 2 surveys, and it is - again - the largest number we have seen.
For now, we still have not recorded much movement on the employment question. We will wait to see if the latest lockdown changes that.
The government continues to underwhelm you, with 29% of the panel scoring them as low as we allow (it’s a mark out of 10), and only 2% of you believing they are doing the best they can. When we began this 31 weeks earlier, those numbers were 4% and 8% respectively.
We always ask a question or two around what people planned to be doing more or less of in terms of social activities in the next six months. Even though many of you completed the survey BEFORE the announcement of the latest national lockdown, we saw some huge numbers here. Very few of you think you’ll be doing more of anything (NO ONE thinks they’ll be going to the hairdresser or salon more!) but 91% think you’ll be socialising with friends and family less, it’s the same for eating out, and 92% think you’ll be visiting the pub on fewer occasions. 94% of you think you will be going to live music and sporting events less, and 95% of you said the same about the cinema and the theatre. Even shopping is likely to be affected: 85% of you told us you’ll be spending less time on the high street, and 57% of you will be shopping for food on fewer occasions.
Finally, we asked you if you thought we should move to a four-weekly cycle of surveys. Most of you either thought we should or agreed to go with the majority. However, that was before the Government announced the second lock-down (for most of you answering the survey anyway). So, we WILL do a survey next week (going out today Friday 6th). Then we expect to send the next one four weeks after that (so around Friday December 5th just after the new lockdown in England is due to end). At least that’s the plan. Unless something changes - yet again!
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