COVID concerns continue to fall in the U.S.
Hello from SurveyMonkey!
Welcome to the latest installment of our research newsletter.
This week your data guide is Victoria Rodriguez, one of our Research Scientists who focuses on DEI and corporate research. She’ll share new polling data on Americans’ changing sentiment toward the COVID-19 pandemic. Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to read more about Victoria!
But first, as always, we wanted to shout out some of our research data in the news and on our blog:
Jon Cohen, our Chief Research Officer, was quoted in a CNBC story about the crazy hot real estate market. According to our data, more than seven in 10 Americans say we’re currently experiencing a housing bubble, and more than half say now is a bad time to buy a home. Read the full story.
Our latest research with the team at Outbreaks Near Me was published in the CDC’s MMWR journal, showing the sharp increase in at-home COVID testing over the last several months. Find it here.
Recently published research by our own Tim Gravelle shows that for all of the media attention devoted to “anti-vaxxers,” people holding strongly anti-vaccine attitudes are a small percentage of the public. Still, vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine attitudes are more prevalent in the United States and Canada than in the United Kingdom. Read it here.
Our recent consumer purchasing decisions survey shows younger shoppers are increasingly reliant on social media to inform their purchasing decisions, but higher-income shoppers are warier and show more skepticism toward social media. Read the full story.
From omicron to BA.2…who?
This week, Shanghai locked down as COVID cases surged in the country’s worst outbreak since the pandemic began. Local Chinese government officials attribute this surge to the new omicron BA.2 variant. In the United States, however, few people are overly concerned about the new variant, and fewer people now than in previous months are taking regular precautions against COVID. Here are a few of the latest highlights from our exclusive polling among more than 11K people in the U.S. from March 21 through March 28:
The latest variant is less concerning to the U.S. public than the omicron variant. Adults in the U.S. found the emergence of omicron in January more concerning than the new BA.2 variant. About half (49%) of the U.S. public says the emergence of subvariant BA.2 does not affect their overall concern about the pandemic, while 35% are more concerned and 13% are less concerned. In January 2022, those numbers were flipped, with about half of people (48%) saying the emergence of the omicron variant made them “more concerned” about the pandemic and 37% saying it had no effect on their concern.
Does the emergence of ______ make you more concerned about the pandemic, less concerned about the pandemic, or does it not affect your concern?
Individuals who say the emergence of BA.2 makes them “more concerned” are more likely to be people of color and older (42% of seniors age 65+, 34% of adults age 35-64, 33% of adults age 18-34).
In general, worry about the COVID-19 pandemic has dropped a total of 20 points overall since January 2022. This holds across all demographics.
The number of people taking COVID-related precautions is also dropping. In January, nearly half (49%) of the general public said they always take COVID precautions into account, even if it's not required. Now, that number has fallen to 37%.
57% of Republicans don’t take COVID precautions unless required, almost twice the number among independents (30%) and more than five times as high as Democrats (10%)
White people are most likely to say they don’t take COVID precautions unless its required (38% of whites, 27% of Hispanics, 16% of Asians, and 13% of Blacks only take precautions if required)
- Victoria Rodriguez
About Victoria: Victoria is the Research Scientist at Momentive responsible for DEI and corporate research. Her recent projects include a partnership with AAPI Data and Lean In. Victoria holds a master’s degree from Columbia University and bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, and enjoys organizing her Brunch Club, spending time with her niece, and absorbing all the latest Gen Z trends from TikTok.
That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading.