Early in of July I took an informal poll of opinion on Covid - how supportive or critical are people of their governments. A month later I have repeated the exercise, a total of 342 people responded (last month 202).
Respondents to the survey, who were sourced by a request through twitter seem not to have changed their opinions at all.
The opinions of friends and family etc on the other hand, seem to have shifted a lot in a month.
Respondents were asked their own opinions and those of their families, friends, neighbours and workmates etc. Here are the questions that were asked:
Of course a "straw poll" conducted through twitter will hardly satisfy sample objectivity and size requirements of more thorough opinion surveys, however, it is remarkable how:
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respondent's opinions are consistent from the two surveys
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respondent's impressions on the opinions of others has moved dramatically.
Based on this small informal poll, general opinion on Covid has be dramatically shifted against the government
The most popular response in both groups was D, that "The govt and their experts have got the whole Covid topic completely and utterly wrong with a disastrous blanket lockdown"
I am reminded of Cambridge Union debate that took place at the start of the UK's lockdown. Prior to the debate, those polled were 80% in favour of the lockdown. After a mere 60 odd minute's exposure to arguments of both sides, the number in favour of lockdown reduced, if I remember correctly, to below half, with an increased number of "don't knows" in the middle.
Needless to say, the debate on covid is crucially important, this straw poll is one small data point that can be added to others that suggests it is worth making the case that the government's response to covid, at the very least, has been completely out of proportion.
The above charts represent respondents from the UK. Below we have the responses from the "rest of the world" which are very similar to the UK results. (Last month, I did not collect "rest of the world" data.)
