Poll finds only one in two UK residents were avoiding leaving their house before lockdown

Only half of people living in the UK were avoiding leaving their homes before Boris Johnson announced the country was going into an enforceable lockdown, a new poll has revealed.

The Ipsos MORI poll was conducted in the days before the PM’s lockdown announcement on Monday, using a sample of 1079 British adults aged 18 to 75, and found “only 50 per cent of Brits were avoiding leaving their homes more, despite that being official government advice”.

The poll found this was an increase of 27 per cent of people avoiding leaving their homes from the previous week, when only 23 per cent were doing so.

Ipsos MORI managing director of public affairs Kelly Beaver said the polling demonstrated “why it was necessary for the government to enforce the lockdown of people in their homes”.

“Only one in two people had cut down how often they were leaving their homes before the government announcement on Monday, despite the advice not to,” she said.

“If keeping people at home is what’s required to flatten the peak of the virus then our polling demonstrates exactly why the government has had to enforce it.”

Another Ipsos poll released today found women were “significantly more likely” to be finding it hard to stay positive about the future compared to before the COVID-19 outbreak, with 72 per cent of women struggling to look forward to the future compared to 51 per cent of men.

Overall, the positivity poll found overall 62 per cent of Britons are finding it harder to stay positive now than pre-outbreak, and 67 per cent of people aged 18 to 34 finding it more difficult compared to those aged 55 to 75 at 54 per cent.

Eighty-five per cent of those polled said it had become more difficult for them to get what they need from the shops due to the pandemic, with 37 per cent saying it’s harder to afford their usual expenses. One third of people surveyed said it had become more difficult to stay in touch with friends and family.