Essential Research and Roy Morgan: more coronavirus polling

Two new polls suggest early skepticism about the threat posed by coronavirus is fast disappearing.

As reported by The Guardian, Essential Research has unusually conducted a new poll just a week after the last. This effectively replicates last week’s suite of questions on coronavirus to tie in with an online forum later today involving The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Research’s Peter Lewis.

The results show a sharp rise in concern since last week, with 53% now saying they are very concerned, after the three previous fortnightly polls had it progressing from 25% to 27% to 39%. Only 18% now say they consider there has been an overreaction to the thread, down from 33% last week, while 43% now think the threat has been underestimated, up from 28%. These results imply little change to last week’s finding that 39% thought the response about right, though we will presumably have to await publication of the full report later today for a complete set of numbers. The poll also finds overwhelming support for the restrictive measures that have been taken. The rise in concern appears to have been matched by a decline in skepticism about media reportage, which 42% now say they trust, up from 35% last week.

Also out today is a Roy Morgan SMS poll on coronavirus, showing 43% support for the view that the federal government is handling the crisis well with 49% disagreeing — a rather weak result by international standards (it is noted that a similar poll in the United Kingdom a bit under a fortnight ago had it at 49% and 37%). This poll finds an even higher pitch of public concern than Essential, in that only 15% believed the threat to be exaggerated, with fully 81% disagreeing. Relatedly, 80% said they were willing to sacrifice some of their “human rights” to help prevent the spread of the virus (evidently having a somewhat different conception of that term from my own), with only 14% disagreeing. The poll was conducted on Saturday and Sunday from a sample of 988.

UPDATE: Full report from Essential Research here. The recorded increase in concern about the virus is not matched by a change in perceptions of the government’s handling of it, which 45% rate as good, unchanged on last week, and 31% rate as poor, up two. There is also a question on concern about climate change, which refutes the hopes of some conservative commentators in suggesting it has not been affected by the coronavirus crisis: 31% say they are more concerned than they were a year ago, 53% no more or less so, and 16% less concerned. However, the number of respondents saying Australia is not doing enough to address climate change is down from 60% in November to 55%, with doing enough up one to 23% and doing too much up one to 9%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1086.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,376 comments on “Essential Research and Roy Morgan: more coronavirus polling”

Comments Page 6 of 48
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  1. Two are moored off the Central Coast – “Corona Queen” and “Corona Princess”

    They could dock them at Woy Woy 🙂

  2. lizzie:

    Someone on Twitter is saying “Always wash fruit and vegetables”.
    With soap?

    Wash them in the sink with dishwashing liquid then rinse, just like you do the dishes (prior to use of a dishwasher anyway!). No so good for things like broccoli but if you boil those anyway that should knock any viral particles on the head.

  3. And
    “Sea Princess” Moored off Caloundra
    “Sun Princess” Moored Sydney White Bay
    “Golden Princess” Moored Port Melbourne
    “Pacific Explorer” Moored Sydney White Bay
    “Viking Orion” At Anchor Port Phillip
    “Pacific Dawn” Anchorage Caloundra
    “Artania” WA
    “The World” WA
    “Radiance of the Seas” Anchorage Port Kembla
    Enough already!

  5. citizen,

    Exactly.

    How many of the businesses which have simply applied decide it is just not worth it to be part of the scheme once the details emerge ?

    Promises are being made by the government through media that just will not eventuate for many workers.

  6. Mavis

    I’m glad you found the COVID-19 video I posted in the wee hours instructive. Yes, it was a bit long, though this should’ve not been a problem for you.

    Actually Mavis, I posted that video twice myself in the last two days, before you found it 🙂

  8. I will go back to reading “1177 BC. The year Civilization Collapsed” by Eric Cline.
    It was all done by “The Sea Peoples”

  11. That was a deliberate misstatement. “The Sea Peoples” was once the standard explanation, but the book is at pains to say that there were many other factors. “It messier and more chaotic”
    Climate change, earthquakes, drought, migrations, rebellions contributed. Cline in conclusion states that one possibility was a plague, but there is no archaeological evidence for this (such as mass graves).

  13. phylactella says:
    Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 1:38 pm

    Oh yes –
    “Ruby Princess” off Terrigal. Showing “Not under Command”. with diamond, not boat icon.

    ‘Not under command’ is denoted by a hoist of two black balls, one beneath the other.

    aka ‘balls up’.

    Possibly the best known two black balls hoist in regional naval history was when HMS Prince of Wales hoist same not long before she was sunk by the Japanese.

    Cruise ships have been turned back from landing all around the world. We have around 20 in or near our ports ATM. These were possibly lured here by one such ship being allowed to offload passengers. There are dozens more abroad. Do we want to become an international sump?

    The Caymans and the like have screwed the rest of the world with these systemic corruptions involved in mass tax dodging and flag of convenience status. Similarly, the cruise ships have skived off the shore infrastructure provided by host countries. Finally, most of the FIFO crews are screwed on wages and conditions. The real owners and the passengers themselves have gorged on the resulting ‘cheap’ fares.

    IMO, let the cruise ships and their passengers go back to their flag-of-convenience owners and/or their tax havens. What goes round comes round.

  15. ‘Officially worse than 9/11’: Americans react as US coronavirus deaths surge to 3000

    Overnight coronavirus deaths in the U.S. surged, increasing by 565 to over 3000. There have now been 3148 coronavirus deaths in America, as the total number of confirmed cases grew by almost 20,000 to 163,479.

    Americans are struggling to grasp what lies ahead. On Monday coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx revealed the federal government now predicts the best case scenario will be 100,000 to 200,000 COVID-19 deaths.

    President Trump declared if the number comes in at 100,000 he will have done “a very good job.”

    – Over 3000 US dead from Coronavirus. Trump wins the George W Bush “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” Negligence in Government Award.

    – “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done” Pretty good job? 3000 Americans have died.

    – So how many September 11’s will this country have to endure before you people admit he is a pathological liar and a fundamental failure?#

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/officially-worse-than-9-11-americans-react-as-us-coronavirus-deaths-surge-to-3000/

  16. laughtong:

    Has anyone seen a list of the boats? I had a quick look and could not find one. The boat we cruised on, The Queen Elizabeth, was still planning to be in Australian waters.

    Not a list, but you can look at AIS maps: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:151.2/centery:-34.0/zoom:9

    Passenger vessels are in dark blue. You can see that right now the Ruby Princess, Spectrum of the Seas, Ovation of the Seas, Voyager of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas, Carnival Splendor and Celebrity Solstice are all off the coast between Wollongong and Gosford.

  17. Victoria’s daily infection numbers are very volatile. Is it outbreaking to 100+ per day?
    NSW looks to be trending lower, finally.
    Qld seems to be swinging wildly around 50 per day.
    WA seems to be on a bumpy plateau. Cruise boat injected into the figures?
    All the rest are small change.
    https://www.covid19data.com.au/

  26. caf @ #265 Tuesday, March 31st, 2020 – 2:21 pm

    laughtong:

    Has anyone seen a list of the boats? I had a quick look and could not find one. The boat we cruised on, The Queen Elizabeth, was still planning to be in Australian waters.

    Not a list, but you can look at AIS maps: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:151.2/centery:-34.0/zoom:9

    Passenger vessels are in dark blue. You can see that right now the Ruby Princess, Spectrum of the Seas, Ovation of the Seas, Voyager of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas, Carnival Splendor and Celebrity Solstice are all off the coast between Wollongong and Gosford.

    Thanks Caf It looks like Queen Elizabeth has departed this region although they were at one point offering cruises here well into April.

  27. Lash the ships together. ‘The Raft’ of infected floats around on the Pacific currents, letting off reffos along the US coastline. Yet more Snow Crash parallels 😛
    Won’t somebody listen to Reason?

  29. Cud Chewer says: Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 2:25 pm

    US coming a close third in terms of deaths per day. Will be at number one soon.

    **************************************************************************************

    Laurence Tribe‏Verified account @tribelaw

    REMINDER: What we’re seeing now reflects what was actually happening 2 to 4 weeks ago. What COVID-19 is doing now won’t be visible until 2 to 4 weeks from now.

  31. Someone asked a few days ago if we made ventilators here, and I pointed out that Resmed did.

    From today’s Guardian live blog …

    I can tell you today that, locally, we will have 500 intensive care ventilators fabricated by ResMed, backed up by 5,000 non-invasive ventilators, with full delivery expected by the end of April.

  34. phylactella says:
    Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 2:08 pm
    And
    “Sea Princess” Moored off Caloundra
    “Sun Princess” Moored Sydney White Bay
    “Golden Princess” Moored Port Melbourne
    “Pacific Explorer” Moored Sydney White Bay
    “Viking Orion” At Anchor Port Phillip
    “Pacific Dawn” Anchorage Caloundra
    “Artania” WA
    “The World” WA
    “Radiance of the Seas” Anchorage Port Kembla
    Enough already!

    A quick check shows the majority of these ships are owned by Carnival (joint US/UK ownership) or one of its subsidiaries.

    Is Carnival, in effect, trying to blackmail the government into letting people ashore by telling all its ship captains not to budge?

    Let’s see how Border Force and their minister respond to a huge company, rather than a few small time people smugglers.

  37. “WA seems to be on a bumpy plateau. Cruise boat injected into the figures?”

    Yep

    Without the ship numbers it was 17 new cases yesterday. With the cruise numbers it went up to 44.

    All those cases go into quarantine, so can’t result in spread. I’d expect the next few days for WA to show some cruise ship inflated numbers. Without that bump, WA numbers were flattening out as well.

  38. Cud Chewer:

    [‘Actually Mavis, I posted that video twice myself in the last two days, before you found it ‘]

    Sorry I missed your posts. I didn’t search YouTube for the video. It just appeared on my recommended list, which, having seen it, I highly do. I found the off-label use of Viagra for treating C-19 (still the subject of trials) was of interest given its original use was for hypertension, and then most know what it’s used for now. It was also revealing that the specialist recommended wearing a mask in public whether or not you have contracted the virus, contrary to what our experts advocate.

  40. It’s Time @ #277 Tuesday, March 31st, 2020 – 1:33 pm

    USA and Australia are barely on the graph when compared to Italy and Spain.

    Actually if you wind Italy and Spain back 14 days (because their outbreaks started earlier than the US outbreak by at least that many days), the US looks a lot like Spain. And the UK (whose outbreak also started relatively later than Italy/Spain) looks a lot like Italy.

    Translate horizontally so that everyone starts from a (virologically) similar t=0 if you want to compare graphs between one country and others.

    Australia’s the only one that’s legitimately flouting the trend.

  41. the absolute cheek of the bloody airlines. They received 715 million dollars then sacked, stood down or stood aside 80% of their workforce now virgin wants a bailout of 1.4 billion and qantas have said if virgin gets the money they want 4 billion dollars plus. And since they have cancelled most of the flights and won’t pay refunds I hope the government tells them to GAGF.

  44. Any medical people in the house got thoughts on what GHunt announced ? For some reason I suspect it means taxpayers pay the bills while private owners pocket the profit 🙁

    .
    1.32pm
    34,000 more beds as private hospitals integrated with public system
    By Dana McCauley
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-global-covid-19-cases-surpass-737-000-nsw-begins-enforcement-of-scott-morrison-s-social-gathering-restrictions-20200330-p54fg5.html

  47. As far as I’m concerned the government should only provide cash assistance to any companies that are deemed critical to Australia and it should be done only by buying shares in said companies on behalf of the Australian people at a discounted rate i.e. the company should offer an exclusive share float to the people of Australia at a 20% discount to current traded price and cease trading until the float is finalised. That way we, the people of Australia, can get our money back or otherwise get value from the companies.

  48. poroti @ #293 Tuesday, March 31st, 2020 – 2:53 pm

    Any medical people in the house got thoughts on what GHunt announced ? For some reason I suspect it means taxpayers pay the bills while private owners pocket the profit 🙁

    .
    1.32pm
    34,000 more beds as private hospitals integrated with public system
    By Dana McCauley
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-global-covid-19-cases-surpass-737-000-nsw-begins-enforcement-of-scott-morrison-s-social-gathering-restrictions-20200330-p54fg5.html

    And nationalize them also!

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