We’re still at less than half of adults comfortable attending location-based entertainment and arts. Attending a museum is still considered the safest, with 50% of adults saying they are comfortable. Going to a concert ranks lowest at 37% of adults. For going to the cinema, 44% feel comfortable, with Millennials showing the greatest comfort at 55% and Baby Boomers the lowest at 35%.
Going out to eat continues to rank as the highest out-of-home leisure activity at 64%. Over seven in ten adults now feel comfortable dining outdoors at a restaurant (72%) compared with only 63% indoors.
There was a sizeable across-the-board spike in vaccinated adults’ comfort for all public activities since the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most places. An average of 45% of vaccinated adults now says they’re “very” or “somewhat” comfortable with dozens of leisure and lifestyle activities, up 6 points since the announcement. The largest uptick in comfort was for dining at a restaurant (up 11 points to 67%) and socializing in public places (up 9 points to 54%).
We’re still at around only one-third of vaccinated adults comfortable attending entertainment, cultural, and sporting events, lower than for the overall population. That is probably due to two factors. The polls show that people who aren’t vaccinated are more comfortable participating in activities. This is especially true for people who don’t plan to get inoculated. They’re participating in activities the same as they did pre-pandemic with 100% comfort. This brings up the average for all adults. The other factor is vaccinated people are still worried about having a breakthrough infection. Surprisingly, it’s the older adults who are least worried.
Nevertheless, we’re headed in a good direction. If infections continue to decline as they recently have been, people continue to get vaccinated, and some virus variant doesn’t upset things, a return to normal, but a new one might not be that far away.
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