People are less likely to shake hands and hug people they do not live with than they were before the pandemic, a poll suggests, while separate research indicates that anxiety levels have increased markedly in the run-up to this Christmas.
Data collected by YouGov and the PA news agency suggests that nearly two-thirds of people shake hands less now than they did before Covid-19 and more than half have cut down on hugging people they do not live with.
Meanwhile, provisional figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that more than a third of adults are experiencing high levels of anxiety, the highest proportion since the UK’s third national lockdown in January.
The latest official data suggests the proportion of adults experiencing high levels of anxiety has reached 38%. Such high anxiety levels have not been seen since similar data was collected between 13 and 17 January this year.
The average level of anxiety experienced by adults – calculated as the mean of all anxiety levels expressed on a scale of one to 10 – is also at its highest since January. The ONS said the rating had been increasing since the end of November, and the 4.3 average figure recorded this month had not been seen since similar figures were collected between 27 and 31 January.
The ONS estimates are based on a poll of 3,314 adults in Britain done between 15 and 19 December this year as part of its opinions and lifestyle survey.
Other widespread behavioural changes identified in the YouGov research include the use of hand sanitiser more often and the observance of social distancing around people whom respondents do not live with. About half of the people surveyed said they were more inclined to wipe down trolleys or baskets in supermarkets, and more than a third said they were more likely to meet people outdoors.
The poll of 1,652 people in Britain also investigated feelings about the pandemic and what it will mean for the future. A third of people said they thought it would never be effectively over in the UK, while 4% thought it was already effectively over. A majority thought it would be over within one or two years.
And the survey suggested that fewer people felt their lives had returned to normal since the emergence of the Omicron variant than had felt that way before. In the first two days of this month, 20% of respondents said they felt a return to normality. That proportion fell to just 12% in the latest data.
