Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain: 2 July 2021

This week, over the period 23 to 27 June 2021, based on adults in Great Britain:

• A similar proportion of adults reported to always or often maintain social distancing (68%) to last week (69%) after reducing from 85% between 14 and 18 April when lockdown restrictions began to ease; this was the same for those avoiding physical contact when outside their home (73% this week, 72% last week, reducing from 86% between 14 and 18 April).

• This week, around half (49%) of adults said they met up indoors with someone not in their household, childcare or support bubble in the past seven days (44% last week), returning to a similar level as beginning of June (50% between 2 and 6 June); while adults meeting up outdoors continued to fall to 56% (60% last week) since the beginning of June (65% between 2 and 6 June)

• Around half (50%) of working adults reported travelling to work exclusively (and not worked from home) in the past seven days, similar to last week (49%) having previously increased from mid-February (34% in the period 10 to 14 February 2021).

• Personal well-being measures of life satisfaction (7.0 this week, 7.1 last week) and feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile (7.3 this week and last week) have remained relatively stable since early May 2021; happiness levels appear to have slightly decreased in recent weeks (7.0 this week, 7.1 last week) and anxiety levels appear to have slightly increased in recent weeks, but remain unchanged this week (3.8) compared with last week.

• Positive sentiment towards the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine remained high and unchanged from last week with 96% of adults reporting they had now either received a vaccine or would be likely to have a vaccine if offered, a further increase since the beginning of the vaccination programme (78% between 10 and 13 December 2020).

• Positive vaccine sentiment among people aged 16 to 29 years remained unchanged at 93% this week and last week; the highest this proportion has been since the start of the vaccination programme in December 2020.

• Nearly 9 in 10 (89%) adults reported to have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine (84% last week), which includes 6 in 10 (63%) adults reporting to have received their second dose (62% last week).

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.

Positive vaccine sentiment

“Positive vaccine sentiment” refers to adults who:

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

This week, 23 to 27 June 2021, we sampled 6,025 households. These were randomly selected from those that had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS) or Opinions and Lifestyle Survey. The responding sample contained 4,070 individuals, representing a 68% response rate.

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