Most people think that we will be united and kind following our recovery from the coronavirus pandemic but only one in five thought we would be an equal society.
The latest survey from the Office of National Statistics, out this morning but carried before this week’s easing of the lockdown found that expectations for when life will return to normal are getting longer: Nearly of adults now think it will be longer than six months compared with a third after the first week of lockdown.
8 in 10 adults in Great Britain continued to say they had either not left their home or only left for the permitted reasons (essential shopping, medical reasons, one form of daily exercise and key workers travelling to work) in the past seven days.
The inability to make plans remains the most common way that the coronavirus pandemic was impacting people’s lives, with 44% saying this was being affected
Around 3 in 10 adults also say life events such as weddings and funerals are affected and nearly 4 in 10 say their personal travel plans including holidays are affected.
Concern about the availability and access to groceries, medication and toiletries has seen the largest decrease this week amongst the concerns, but still nearly 1 in 4 adults say their access has been affected.
Meanwhile of the 37% of adults who said the coronavirus was affecting their work the most common reason was because they had been furloughed – nearly 3 in 10 of these adults cited this reason . Around 1 in 10 also said they were concerned about their health and safety at work .
A lower proportion of key workers said they were very or somewhat worried about the effect the coronavirus was having on their life (75%) compared with 78% last week, and the most common issue was the effect on their work.
Among key workers, 46% said their work was being impacted, which decreased from last week (54%), and concerns about their health and safety was the most common reason, with over 3 in 10 saying they were concerned about this.
Difficulty in following social distancing advice (86%) and there being limited or no protective clothing available (41%) were the most cited reasons.
Just under 1 in 4 adults said the coronavirus was affecting their household finances, and this is consistent with the results from previous weeks.
The most common concern among these adults continued to be a reduced income . Issues with different aspects of savings are also important this week with a third saying they had needed to use savings to cover living costs, a quarter saying they were unable to save as usual and one in five saying their savings value is being affected.
