For the first time, more people now disapprove of the government’s handling of the crisis than approve

The last week has seen a significant drop in public confidence in, and approval of, the Government’s handling of the coronavirus situation, according to the latest polls.

For the first time, more people now disapprove of the government’s handling of the crisis than approve, with the split now at 42 per cent and 39 per cent respectively.

Confidence in the government’s ability has also fallen steeply from 48 per cent to 39 per cent.

Two-fifths now state they are not confident in the Government’s abilities, rising from 31 per cent last week.

Confusion over Covid advice?

The majority of English adults could correctly identify the updated advice given by Boris Johnson on Sunday (76 per cent correctly identified advice on exercising, 69 per cent on meeting others and 51 per cent on going into work).

However, 53 per cent of the English public do not feel that the new Government slogan of ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’ is clear, and less than a third (31 per cent) of the British public were able to correctly identify where the UK is on the COVID Alert System scale that the Government introduced [number 4 on the scale].

Confidence in meeting the new rules

While almost nine in ten (87 per cent) say they personally are confident in using common sense when meeting friends and relatives in line with the new rules, just a third (34 per cent) are confident on other members of the public using their common sense.

More positively, two thirds of those asked to return to work (68 per cent) feel assured their workplace is COVID-secure this week, and 65 per cent think their journey to work would also be COVID-secure.

Public feels uncomfortable using public transport

Once lockdown is lifted, it will likely take some time for the public to feel comfortable travelling by public transport again. Only one in seven would feel comfortable travelling by train/Overground or bus (15 per cent and 16 per cent respectively). This drops to 12 per cent who would feel comfortable immediately travelling by metro/underground and 11 per cent for travelling by plane.

More than one in four would not feel comfortable using any of these forms of public transport again until a vaccine is available.

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.