In this phase of the pandemic we are opening up restrictions but storm clouds gather posed by new COVID-19 variants.
A week or two back I mapped the disinterest people had in the pandemic in community Facebook groups.
This week, I’m reading the rolling Ofcom data that shows how people are getting pandemic information.
If you need to reach people to tell them about coronavirus its worth spending time on these numbers.
Here’s the main take outs from May 2021.
You need to know
We’re not consuming as much COVID-19 info
At the start of the pandemic, 99 per cent of people looked once a day for news on the pandemic. That’s fallen to 81 per cent 15-months in.
Online, 33 per cent of people haven’t shared anything about the virus in the past week – a figure creeping up.
We check daily
Long gone are the days of being glued to rolling news. We’ll dip in once a day. That goes for all age groups. Around 80 per cent of all age groups do this.
We still talk to friends and family
We share COVID-19 most to friends and family rather than online. Around a third do this.
We go to traditional media
Eight out 10 people take their COVID-19 updates from traditional media. That’s print, online, broadcast and through a news outlet’s social media channel.
We don’t go to official channels
If you’re updating public sector sites thank you but a minority will head to your sites.
UK Government sites attract between 15 and 20 per cent of the population with the figure falling to around 14 per cent for national NHS messages.
Local government sites are even lower with just six per cent of under 24s seeing content rising to 15 per cent for over 65s.
Local NHS sites are lower still with no more than eight per cent of people heading to them.
We listen to officials
Across all ranges, officials remain the unexpected stars of COVID-19. At least a third of all ages take information from the likes of the Chief Medical Officer or Director of Public Health.
That’s a figure than Facebook across the board.
We notice online ads on social media
Eighty per cent of social media users have seen online ads about the pandemic whether they be pop-ups, banner ads or boosted posts.
We can see misinformation
A fifth of people have seen misinformation in the past week which is down slightly with under 35s most likely to see false information.
Trends by age demographic
16-24s get their data from a wide spread of places
Despite using social media extensively, this age group look to traditional news sources for their COVID-19 information.
This age group are all across social media with 98 per cent using it daily and 57 per cent using it 10 times a day.
But they get COVID-19 news from traditional media (77 per cent) and broadcasters in particular (71 per cent).
BBC TV (47 per cent) BBC online (36 per cent) officials (32 per cent) Facebook (28 per cent) Instagram (27 per cent) more than friends and family (34 per cent), newspapers (23 per cent), YouTube (22 per cent) and Snapchat (12 per cent).
25 to 34
Like their younger peers, traditional media is where this group get their pandemic alerts.
Traditional media (75 per cent) leads the table with broadcasters (63 per cent) the largest sub-group BBC TV (37 per cent).
However, this age group is the biggest vaccine sceptics with 12 per cent not wanting the vaccine as well as the biggest user of Facebook for pandemic info (30 per cent).
35 to 44
Traditional media is used to get COVID-19 info by 84 per cent of this age group.
BBC TV (49 per cent) is the highest sub-group with 32 percent for BBC online with newspapers on 31 per cent.
45 to 54
Broadcasters (81 per cent) are the most popular route BBC TV (51 per cent) family and friends (29 per cent) newspapers (26 per cent).
55 to 64
Traditional media is consumed by 90 per cent with broadcasters on 84 per cent.
65 plus
This group are the happiest to be vaccinated – 63 per cent – and traditional media dominates.