Will coronavirus change how SC behaves forever? Survey tracks how we’re reacting
Many South Carolinians have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, and even as people in the Palmetto State are still optimistic the pandemic will pass, many plan to change their behavior long term in response.
Those are among the findings of a statewide survey conducted by Columbia-based marketing agency Chernoff Newman, trying to measure how South Carolinians are handling the pandemic.
The agency conducted an online survey of 500 people each in South Carolina and North Carolina from April 13 to April 18, hoping to find the best way forward out of the crisis for firm’s clients. Responses came from a panel assembled by a third-party data collection agency, weighted according to factors such as gender, ethnicity and region.
“The overarching anxiety we see is matched with the commitment to live within these confines for a while,” said Peter LaMotte, senior vice president at Chernoff Newman. “Nothing’s going to be the same anytime soon. They knew we have to live with face masks and social distancing, and they’re adapting their behavior accordingly.”
Perhaps of most concern for local businesses that are now beginning to reopen in the Palmetto State, many survey respondents said they planned to continue some of their lockdown behavior after restrictions on business operations are lifted.
Of those surveyed, 64% said they planned to continue eating at home more often rather than going out, and half said they would keep streaming their entertainment online rather than go out to a theater. Forty percent said they would continue getting takeout rather than eating out in a restaurant, although 57% said they were eager to get back to dining at their favorite spot.
“Ninety-six percent said they have done some social distancing, and 70 percent say they will continue to,” said Fenton Overdyke, who oversees research at Chernoff Newman. “That has implications for going to the movies, but also for voting.”
LaMotte said businesses will need to be able to quickly and clearly communicate to their customers that it is actually safe to come back out into the world.
“When you enter a building, a store, a restaurant, you need to know how they are doing this,” he said. “You need to immediately start communicating with your employees and your customers the rules and the guidelines.”
Meanwhile, around a quarter of people said they were planning to continue working from home after COVID-19 passes. Another 38% said they planned to go back to the office, but an equal number said the question doesn’t apply to them.
The economic impacts in the data are stark. About 24% of respondents said they started working from home because of the coronavirus. Nine percent said their business had closed, 12% have lost a job and 13% have been furloughed. Twelve percent have seen a reduction in pay, and 49% reported having their hours cut back.
But the effects also aren’t universal. Curiously, 49% said they did not previously work outside the home before the coronavirus hit.
“That’s a lower participation rate than I would expect,” Overdyke said. “But there are retirees, there are younger people who aren’t working.”
Of those who have been away from the office for the past two months, almost a quarter said they don’t miss it, while the rest were almost evenly split between missing their workplace “a lot” or “somewhat.”
But despite the stresses the pandemic and its economic effects have placed on people, 91% told Chernoff Newman they were “very” or “somewhat” confident their job would still be there in the end.
In fact, more than 80 percent reported their stress level was somewhere between neutral and, in Chernoff Newman’s phrase, “pretty Zen” — even as three-quarters report concerns about their health and 60% are concerned about their finances.
But will that change? “This is a snapshot,” Overdyke said. “We’re debating right now (when to do a second poll). There may be some event that occurs that causes us to go back out, and the longer this goes on, we may find some people are more anxious.”
LaMotte said polls are shaped by what’s happening at the time they are taken. During the time this poll was in the field, President Donald Trump announced he was cutting U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, and LaMotte said that news had a noticeable effect on some responses.
“We’re taking the temperature of the public, and we’ll be looking to do that again in the future,” he said. “This is a rapidly changing situation.”
This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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