Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain: 27 August 2021

This week, over the period 18 to 22 August 2021, based on adults in Great Britain:

• The proportion of adults reporting to wear face coverings when outside their home (90%) was similar to last week (89%), as was the proportion of adults who always or often maintain social distancing (45% this week, 46% last week).

• A high proportion of adults still felt that measures to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) were either very important or important; the measures included wearing a face covering (88% this week, 86% last week) and socially distancing from others not in their household (86% this week, 84% last week).

• The proportion of adults that reported self-isolating in the last seven days remained relatively stable (4% this week, 3% last week).

• The main reasons adults self-isolated in the last seven days were because of testing positive for COVID-19 (28%), being in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 (22%) and being notified by the NHS app to self-isolate (18%).

• The proportion of adults meeting up indoors (68%) and outdoors (65%) with others outside their household in the past seven days was higher than before the introduction of step four guidance in England (47% indoors, 58% outdoors, in the period 14 to 18 July), although was relatively stable in the latest week (69% and 67% last week respectively).

• Personal well-being measures remained stable compared with last week, with life satisfaction (7.1), feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile (7.3), happiness (7.1), and anxiety (3.8) all remaining unchanged from the previous week.

• Following a gradual decline since mid-July (57% in the period 14 to 18 July), the proportion of adults that felt very or somewhat worried about the effect of COVID-19 on their life right appears to have stabilised (48% this week, 46% last week).

This week we looked at the attitudes of adults who have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine towards a vaccine booster:

• Over 9 in 10 (94%) people who have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine would be very or fairly likely to have a booster vaccine if offered; 1 in 50 (2%) were very or fairly unlikely to do so.

• The main reasons among those who reported they were unlikely to have a booster COVID-19 vaccine were thinking the first and second vaccine will be enough to keep them safe (58%), not thinking the booster jab will offer any extra protection (37%) and being worried about the long-term effects on health (36%).¹

Notes for: Main points

1. Please note these estimates are based on a small sample size and so should be interpreted with caution.

This release contains data and indicators from a module being undertaken through the Office for National Statistics' (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.

Sampling and weighting

From the week of 4 to 8 August 2021 onwards, the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) sample size was reduced to around 5,000 households each week to help ensure the survey remains sustainable. This week, we sampled 4,921 households. These were randomly selected from those that had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS) or OPN. The responding sample contained 3,189 individuals, representing a 65% response rate.

Survey weights were applied to make estimates representative of the population (based on August 2021 population estimates). Further information on the survey design and quality can be found in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information.

Upcoming changes

Since March 2020, the ONS has delivered a weekly Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) to help provide rapid evidence around the social impacts of COVID-19 on adults in Great Britain. As we move to a period where restrictions have been lifted across the Great Britain, the OPN will move to a fortnightly data collection. This also brings us into line with data collection on the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS).

The first fortnightly collection will cover the period 25 August to 5 September, and data will be published on Friday 10 September. As such, there will be no release of this publication on Friday 3 September.