Ongoing Attitudes to Covid

September 2022

Cultural Participation Monitor Wave 7 | Autumn 2022

This research is from The Audience Agency's nationwide longitudinal (ongoing) panel survey of changing views about participating in creative and cultural activities through the recent and ongoing crises, and beyond, the Cultural Participation Monitor.

Contents

Themes

Fears surrounding Covid-19 are softening, with half feeling 'back to normal' and fewer than 1 in 10 people expressing strong concern about catching the virus themselves, although over half still worry about vulnerable friends and family, while support for certain safety precautions remains high.

Concerns about catching Covid-19

Significant numbers do remain somewhat concerned about Covid-19 (henceforth Covid), with 39% ‘agreeing’ or ‘strongly agreeing’ that they are worried about catching Covid, while 55% say that they are worried about others they know falling ill with it.

Figure 1. Levels of worry about falling ill with Covid-19 over time.
Figure 1. Levels of worry about falling ill with Covid-19 over time.
  • However, only 9% ‘strongly agree’ they are worried about catching Covid, which is much lower than the 13% who said so in Spring 2022.
  • A slightly less reduced 15% ‘strongly agree’ that they are worried about others they know catching it, down from 18% six months ago.
  • A majority of 53 % think they can avoid catching or spreading it with precautions, while 39% say they have stopped making Covid-specific lifestyle adjustments altogether - and we can speculate this is in fact far higher in practice, given that 61% say that ‘it is time for people to get back to normal’.
  • That said, only a minority of 31% say that they consider the Covid pandemic to be ‘effectively over’ in the UK, although this is up from 25% in the spring.

Attitudes towards safety measures

There remains widespread support for various Covid safety measures:

  • Oddly, 76% still consider ready availability of hand sanitiser indoors ‘very important’ or ‘important’, narrowly behind enhanced ventilation at 79%.
  • Social distancing was the least popular measure, with only 51% rating it as ‘very important’ or ‘important’.
  • Masks and ventilation were rated as much more important indoors compared to outdoors (54% cf. 36% and 79% cf.49% respectively).

There is, however, a sense that Covid’s threat is receding:

  • Only 13% think the risks of catching/spreading Covid are ‘very high’ or ‘high’ from everyday activities outside the home (but 30% for indoor events).
  • Looking ahead, 36% think it is ‘very likely’ that Covid will have an impact in 6 months, 18% in a year and 14% in two years.
Figure 2. Percentage predicting Covid impact in 6 months, a year and two year's time.
Figure 2. Percentage predicting Covid impact in 6 months, a year and two year's time.

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