LIFE UNDER LOCKDOWN -- HAWAI‘I RESIDENT ASSESSMENT OF COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS

From UH Public Policy Center, July 14, 2020 (excerpt)

Below are some of the more critical survey findings:

A 54% majority still felt “A Little” or “Very” Unsafe going out to places with many other people. However, 61% “Somewhat” trusted (and another 10% “Strongly” trusted) State and local governments to keep everyone safe.

The great majority (88%) thought various public health restrictions were “Mostly Reasonable” steps to protect public health, and only 7% found them “Mostly Unreasonable” violations of individual rights. Given a list of 20 specific restrictions, majorities thought all of them proved worthwhile for the March-to-May period, but some items garnered relatively larger minorities who said they were “Not Worth It” – particularly restrictions affecting non-COVID medical visits and restrictions on public beaches, followed by closing shopping centers/businesses and the 14-day inter-island quarantine.

Asked to state in their own words what Hawai‘i did “right” in addressing the
pandemic, respondents most often mentioned the overseas tourism shutdown/quarantine, cited by more than half of Hawai‘i residents. As for what Hawaii might “have done better,” answers were more scattered, but two of the top ones (at about 17% each) also involved tourism – a desire for even more restrictions on tourism and more effective tourist quarantine enforcement.

If there is another wave (which 67% thought probable), majorities would be
willing to repeat most of the same 20 restrictions. However, there was significant reluctance to repeat the same restrictions noted above – with majorities not wanting the same approaches to medical visits and public beaches, and strong pluralities against the same approaches to closing shopping centers/businesses and the inter-island quarantine. Some people simply said, “Don’t Do It Again,” but some said, “Do It in a Different Way” – and the survey gathered suggestions from sub-samples about how these more problematic restrictions could be done differently.

The survey explored selected household impacts of the virus and its economic effects. Two-thirds of households with children who had stayed home during the pandemic thought at least one child had been negatively affected in terms of personal development or education.  Though the majority of respondents themselves (90%) handled the restrictions well on an emotional level, about one in five households were reported as having someone with “serious personal emotional problems” during the lockdown. And more than one-third said a “possibly important medical issue” had been put off.

On the economic front, just 7% said someone in the household had permanently lost their job, but 34% said a household member had been temporarily laid off and 28% had worries about someone being laid off or fired soon.  About 37% of households had someone who had filed for Unemployment Insurance benefits, with 31% having someone already receiving them.

Some 81% of residents agreed they do not want “tourists coming to visit my community right now,” and just 15% disagreed. There is moderate trust
(roughly one-third) in government and the travel industry working together to re-open tourism safely, while there is less trust in the industry itself. About one-third of residents do not trust either the state or travel industry to re-open tourism safely. If forced to choose between “Just getting tourism going for now” versus “Making big changes to the nature of tourism first,” 69% opted for big changes, 19% for getting tourism going again right away, with the rest undecided.

Demographic and other group differences depended on the specific question. A general pattern was that lower-income and other marginalized
groups were simultaneously the most negatively affected people, the most
willing to repeat all the same restrictions, and the least willing to see tourism resume in its current form….

read … Full Report

HNN: Survey: 8 in 10 residents say they aren’t ready to welcome tourists back 

CB: Survey: A Majority Of Hawaii Residents Support Coronavirus Restrictions

SA: Residents snub reopening for tourism, survey finds