Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain: 23 April 2021

This week, over the period 14 to 18 April 2021, based on adults in Great Britain:

• Compliance with most measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) remained high, with 87% of adults reporting handwashing when returning home and 97% using a face covering; both proportions unchanged from last week (the period 7 to 11 April 2021).

• More people are leaving home in the last seven days following further easing of lockdown restrictions for reasons such as: to shop for things other than basic necessities (20% among adults who left home compared with 14% last week), to do leisure activities (12% compared with 8%) or to collect takeaway food or drinks (18% compared with 15%).

• Over half (54%) of adults met up with someone outside their household, childcare or support bubble in the last seven days (57% last week); this 54% was made up of: 3% who met indoors only, 43% who met outdoors only and 8% who met both indoors and outdoors.

• Over half (55%) of working adults reported leaving home for work in the past seven days, a slight increase compared with last week (53%) and a notable increase since mid-February (44% in the period 10 to 14 February 2021).

• Personal well-being levels were relatively stable: life satisfaction (6.9 this week and last week, 7.3 in February 2020 before first coronavirus lockdown), feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile (7.3 this week and last week, 7.6 in February 2020), happiness (7.1 this week, 6.9 last week and 7.2 in February 2020) and anxiety (3.8 this week, 3.9 last week and 3.5 in February 2020).

• Positive sentiment towards the COVID-19 vaccine remained high; 93% of adults reported they had now either received a vaccine or would be likely to have a vaccine if offered; 94% last week.

• Just over 8 in 10 (83%) people aged 16 to 29 years reported positive vaccine sentiment compared with 88% last week, this appeared to be driven by a slight increase in the proportion who said they were unlikely (very or fairly) to have a vaccine if offered (8% this week compared with 4% last week); 63% of adults aged 16 to 29 years reported positive vaccine sentiment at the start of the vaccination programme in December 2020.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is publishing more data and analysis than ever before. We are constantly reviewing our publications based on your feedback to make sure that we continue to meet the needs of our users. As a result, future editions of this publication may focus more strongly on headline indicators and main messages. Datasets will continue to be available. Thank you for your continued support.

This release contains data and indicators from a module being undertaken through the ONS’ Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) to understand the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on British society.

Breakdowns by age, sex, region and country, including confidence intervals for the estimates, are contained in the Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain dataset.

Where changes in results from previous weeks are presented in this bulletin, associated confidence intervals should be used to assess the statistical significance of the differences.

Positive vaccine sentiment

“Positive vaccine sentiment" refers to adults who:

• have received the vaccine
• have been offered the vaccine and waiting to be vaccinated
• report being very or fairly likely to have the vaccine if offered

Our survey does not include adults living in care homes or other establishments so will not capture vaccinations in these settings. Because of small sample sizes, the percentage of adults who have declined the vaccine should be treated with caution.

Estimates of attitudes towards vaccination provided since 13 to 17 January 2021 should be used with caution when compared with any weeks prior to this. In the weeks prior to this, adults were asked their likelihood of having a vaccine if offered but were not specifically asked if they had already been offered or received a vaccine.

Sampling and weighting

In the week 14 to 18 April 2021, a sample of 6,025 households was randomly selected from those that had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS).

The responding sample contained 4,183 individuals, representing a 69% response rate.

Survey weights were applied to make estimates representative of the population (based on April 2021 population estimates).

Further information on the survey design and quality can be found in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information.