A decreasing number of Americans are practicing social distancing despite guidelines that continue to say otherwise, according to the results of a new poll.
Key figures in the Gallup survey:
- 58% of U.S. adults are practicing social distancing, down from 75% during the week of March 30-April 5.
- In states that have stay at home orders, 64% are practicing social distancing. In states without the orders, the number drops to 51%.
- The poll results also show that a rising percentage of people are leaving their home to shop for groceries (49%, up from 42% on April 5), go to work (30%, up from 25%), and visit another person's house (19%, up from 11%).
- Fewer people (73%) are choosing to stay at home as much as possible, while a rising number of people (27%) are starting to lead normal lives. On March 22, those numbers were at 87% and 13%, respectively.
The poll was conducted among 4,159 U.S. adults aged 18 and older from May 4-10. The margin of error for individual samples is plus or minus 3 percentage points, but the number is higher for subgroups (no exact figure was provided).
The Gallup results were released as states start to loosen restrictions and allow people to eat at restaurants and shop at more stores after the country was largely shut down for several weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
More than 1.4 million Americans have gotten sick and close to 90,000 have died from the virus.