COVID-19 General Issues Survey

Analysis of CoronaVirus Survey Administered in May-June 2020

Back in May 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was still new in the United States, I kept wanting to create a survey about some general issues regarding the virus and pandemic. I finally got around to creating one and administering it via Facebook. The response I got was amazing! A total of 184 people responded. WAYYYY more than I was expecting. So I would like to formally thank you each one of you for your participation in this personal project.

I would also like to apologize for the time its taken to get this analysis out. I had the majority of it done a while back, but creating this deliverable has taken time as life got busy and kept me from doing it. Better late than never! So without further ado, the analysis of the questions is below. I didn’t analyze each and every question in depth as I felt some questions didn’t need further analysis.

This survey was administered 4 months ago during the early stages of the pandemic. As the pandemic progressed and more information became available, the type of questions I would have liked to ask has changed and I am sure that your answers to some of these questions has changed as well. So when looking at the data below, try and think back to what you answered in May/June and see how different your answer would be today.

Click ‘Download’ below to get the complete dataset for this survey.

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Question 2 – On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is No Fear, and 10 is Extreme Fear, What was your fear level when you first heard about the COVID-19 Virus?

Question 3 – Using the same scale as the previous question, where 1 is No Fear, and 10 is Extreme Fear, What is your fear level now that the COVID-19 Virus has impacted the world.

For these two questions, I grouped them for a comparison analysis. Seeing the average changes of fear over time. The first two graphs shown below are the raw data graphs showing how everyone as a group answered.

Shown in the above graph: The average fear level went from 3.97 up to 4.91, an increase of nearly 1 “Fear Unit”. This is where measuring fear gets hard, because what exactly is a “Fear Unit”, but overall, fear increased on average by 1 point as the pandemic went on. Where is your fear level today? Would you still rank yourself around the average? Or are you higher on the scale? I would predict, based on what I’ve seen, the average fear level would be near the 5 or 6 level.

Now, lets break the fear level down by Gender.

Male fear level increased on average from 3.51 to 4.59, an increase of 1.08
Female fear level increased on average from 4.15 to 5.05, an increase of 0.9

The female group started with a higher initial fear level than the male group, but had a slightly lower increase from initial to full pandemic fear levels (difference of .18). I don’t want to come off as gender shaming, saying females are on average more scared than males. That isn’t what I’m going for here. I just wanted to see a general breakdown between male and female.

Now, a breakdown by demographic age group.

18-24 Initial Fear	4.028	Change of:
18 -24 Full Pandemic Fear	4.833	0.806
25-34 Initial Fear	4.192	Change of:
25-34 Full Pandemic Fear	5.329	1.137
35-44 Initial Fear	4.429	Change of:
35-44 Full Pandemic Fear	4.667	0.238
45-54 Initial Fear	2.800	Change of:
45-54 Full Pandemic Fear	5.440	2.640
55-64 Initial Fear	3.895	Change of:
55-64 Full Pandemic Fear	3.842	-0.053
65+ Initial Fear	4.400	Change of:
65+ Full Pandemic Fear	3.400	-1.000

The age group of 45-54 had the largest fear increase, with an average change of 2.64. While the age group of 65+ had the smallest increase (technically a decrease) of -1.0.

Finally, I broke down these two questions by Education Level attained.

Initial Fear (HS or Equiv.)	3.538	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (HS or Equiv.)	4.769	1.2307692
Initial Fear (Trade School)	4.800	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Trade School)	3.000	-1.8
Initial Fear (Some College)	3.326	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Some College)	4.721	1.3953488
Initial Fear (Associates)	4.032	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Associates)	4.742	0.7096774
Initial Fear (Bachelors)	4.145	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Bachelors)	5.420	1.2753623
Initial Fear (Masters/Professional)	4.850	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Masters/Professional)	4.500	-0.35
Initial Fear (Doctorate)	3.000	Change of:
Full Pandemic Fear (Doctorate)	4.000	1

Those who received ‘Some College’ had the largest increase (by a slim margin) on average, with an increase of 1.395. Again, on the other end, the smallest increase (technically a decrease) was those who received a ‘Trade School’ degree.

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Question 4

Would you say that your overall mental health has: Increased A lot, Increased Some, Stayed About the Same, Decreased Some, or Decreased A lot.

With the many lockdowns and quarantines that were put in place from federal, state and local governments, one major issues that I was curious about was that of mental health. Being forced to be socially distant from others, being locked in your house, only being able to leave for shopping can have very negative effects on people.

I was extremely relieved to see the results of this question, and that the majority of you were ‘hanging in there’ during these interesting times. Four months have passed and a majority of the lockdowns and quarantines remain in place, so I truly hope that all of you are still ‘hanging in there’ or getting better! If you need help, seek help. Don’t be afraid to ask.

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Question 5

There are two leading theories developing, one that the virus is a lab created Bio-Weapon, and the other that is came from someone eating Bat. Which do you believe more?

As time went on, these two theories and conspiracy theories died off. While this question is today, irrelevant, at the beginning of all the mayhem it was interesting to see what everyone’s point of view was.
With how little was actually known about the situation, but with the “Bat Meat” theory being the most plausible, that theory took the most votes.

I’m not sure where these theories stand today. I haven’t heard anything about any of them in recent news stories, but I believe that the bat meat is the story people are sticking with.

Here were some random answers I received that didn’t fit into any of the main answers:

• Bio-engineered super solider serum that went all wrong.
• God is speaking. Judgement is coming.
• That it is a bio-weapon or lab created is not substantiated by science. However, when people say it “cane from someone eating a bat”, they’re repeating generalizations and speculation unfounded in actual evidence and motivated by stereotypes of southern China. It undeniably originated from the frontier between human and animal spaces, but there are any number of scientifically backed theories for specific origins, most recently evidence that points to the trade in Raccoon Dog fur.

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Question 6

Do you plan on getting the COVID-19 Vaccine as soon as it becomes available?

As we get closer to actually having a vaccine for the coronavirus, I would imagine that the 45% of people who were unsure are a little more decided in their decision whether or not they plan on receiving the first round of vaccines.

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Question 7

Which of the following PPE have you personally used when you have left your house? (Please select all that apply)

I used a word chart for this question, so the larger the word, the more it was mentioned in the responses.

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Question 8

Have you, or do you plan on, investing money into the historically low Stock Market?

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Question 9

Do you support stay at home orders issued by local and state governments?

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Question 10

On a scale of 1 to 10, Where 1 is “Not at all, life as usual”, and 10 is “I Haven’t left my house except for groceries”, How strictly have you followed your local stay at home order?

Trying to recall the exact number of times you left your house during an entire week is nearly impossible. So questions like these are typically the best guess of the respondent. The data does support that because a majority of people support the government’s stay at home orders (Question 9), it comes at no surprise that the highest concentration of times left the house hovers toward 10.

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Question 11

How Quickly after the stay at home orders are lifted do you plan on returning to normal life?

Whatever you chose in May/June and regardless of what you would choose now, stay safe out there!
Other answers received:
– A combo of 2 and 4. History could repeat itself( Spanish flu 1918)
– He will lead me. Not government.
– I’m an essential employee my life has been pretty normal
– My life is fairly normal right now as an “essential” worker

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Question 12

Has your job been impacted due to the stay at home orders/quarantine?

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Question 13

How many times in the last 7 days did you leave your house? (For both, essential and non-essential purposes)

Another question like Question 10, where remembering the exact number is a hard task, so while the data may be a bit skewed, I believe it to be mostly accurate.

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Question 14

Do you agree or disagree with how your Local Government is handling the COVID-19 Response?

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Question 15

Do you agree or disagree with how your State Government is handling the COVID-19 Response?

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Question 16

Do you agree with the way Donald Trump has handled the entire pandemic situation?

Many times in the U.S. when something major happens (i.e. – recession, pandemic, tragedy, etc.) the current president is to blame. Whether or not it is actually their fault, people will always tend to point the finger at the president. The COVID-19 pandemic is no different. Now in September, as the election gets closer, the job President Trump is doing with the pandemic is a major issue for voters. We aren’t here to talk about who you support or not, but the above graph and the following are how the 184 respondents answered when asked about President Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

For this question, I only broke down the data by political preference, and age.

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This third graph shows all the potential options for political preference and where they lie. This graph got a little busy which is why I decided to group the Right and Left together, to clean it up a bit. I added this so you could see the entire data portrayed as it was received and broken down.

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When looking at age, it was interesting to see the results. Only 1 age group (65+, slight bias from 45-54) had a clear bias towards one answer. Below is the breakdown of the age groups what percentage of the total population the represent.

Below is the breakdown by age group and where each age group lies on the Agree/Disagree scale (% of age group)

Across all age groups, on average respondents selected:

• Strongly Disagree – 18% of the time
• Disagree – 10% of the time
• Neither Agree/Disagree – 26% of the time
• Agree – 36% of the time
• Strongly Disagree – 10% of the time

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Question 17

Would you rather see the economy reopen quickly, and minimize the damage being done, or keep the economy closed until the virus can be contained and controlled?

All 3 of these options were tried nationwide in different states, and from what I have seen, neither option is perfect. All 3 options received mixed results when implemented. As we are now in September, many states are still in the mid-Stages of their re-opening plans (Grey Option), while the virus remains a threat to everyone. The most popular option selected is the one that is used by the majority of governors across the country, and it seems to be working (for the most part, depending on who you ask).

Other answers received:
– Hard to answer. I want it open but, I worry about those that will get sick because of it.
– Let the young and very healthy go back to work. Caution heavily the elderly to go out
– Open completely and let us decide how much to go out.
– Reopen most of the economy, have immunocompromised people still be careful.
– Reopen slowly but make testing mandatory for businesses to reopen. If an employee has been in contact/ or is infected they should be forced to self isolate. Take the necessary precautions to do it right. To minimize a second wave.

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Question 18

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: A full blown economic shut down, which will result in the loss of many American jobs, small businesses and livelihoods, is worth sacrificing to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

This question was a clearly biased question. I knew it was a leading and biased question as I wrote it, and purposefully left it in the survey to see what people would say. The results were interesting, and when broken down, provide certain insights into certain demographics. This question is the classic, “you’re on a train, on one track there is 5 people, on the other there is 1, which track do you choose?” type of question. No answer is truly morally sound, but it all comes down to personal opinions, political affiliation, age, lifestyle, etc.

So its understood what you are looking at in terms of results:
To agree with the statement you: agree that shutting down businesses (possible forever) and forcing people out of their livelihoods is the right move to slow down the COVID-19 spread, with potentially a more controlled spread of the virus.

Whereas, if you disagree you: disagree that shutting down businesses to slow down the virus is the right choice, and that businesses should remain open in order to protect people’s hard earned livelihoods and small businesses, but could potentially allow for a large explosion of COVID-19 cases.

Here the data shows the breakdown based on Right Wing and Left Wing political preferences. It comes at no surprise (to me at least) that the Left doesn’t show strong numbers until you hit Neutral and going into the Disagree side. The exact opposite is true for the Right Wing. It has been proven over time that the Left tends to have more empathy than the Right (not saying Right wingers don’t have empathy, because I know A LOT who do), which doesn’t make either 100% right/wrong, but the data presented here supports that claim.

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Question 19

Did you support the 2 Trillion Dollar Stimulus Package passed by Congress that gave Americans a $1,200+ monetary boost?

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Question 20

Do you support future congressional bills to provide financial relief to US Citizens (eg, $2,000/month, Rent/Mortgage payment freeze)?

While doing analysis, this graph was especially interesting. The less likely you are to receive the full $1,200 or even part of it, the less support that group gave. While those who were guaranteed the entire $1,200 stimulus check, showed strong support for the bill.

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Question 21

Do you think that the number of cases/deaths in the United States is being under reported, over reported, or accurately reported?

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Question 22

How many times a day do you check the news for COVID-19 related news? (New Cases/Deaths, vaccine updates, CDC news, etc.)

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Demographics

Gender

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Age

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Marital Status

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Income

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States Where Respondents Live

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Education Level

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Ethnicity

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Political Preference

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That concludes the COVID-19 Survey Analysis! Thank you again so much for participating if you did, and also thank you for checking it out! This was such a fun personal project that was made successful but 184 of you! Never expected to get that many responses back! Hope this was informative, and helpful. The COVID-19 pandemic continues, and many more questions could be asked of all of us, but for now, we have this snapshot into the past (May/June).

The analysis doesn’t necessarily end here! Download the dataset, and mess around with it yourself, and find answers to questions you have about the data received!

Thanks again! Stay safe out there!

Leave a comment below with any questions, insights, or any other comment! Please keep comments civil, this is a family site.