Covid-19 Readiness: The Surveys
Life insurers, employers and Republican consumers have all expressed optimism.
Many Americans say they’re prepared to handle the Covid-19 outbreak — but Democrats aren’t so sure.
That’s the picture that emerges from survey outbreak-related surveys.
Resources
- A copy of the LIMRA/LOMA survey summary is available here.
- A copy of the Paychex employer survey summary report is available here.
- A copy of the Gallup survey report is available here.
- An article about a Covoid-19 impact survey is available here.
LIMRA and LOMA surveyed 28 financial services companies from Feb. 14 through March 2.
Paychex polled 300 randomly selected business owners with 2 to 500 employees from Feb. 28 through Feb. 29.
Gallup surveyed 1,019 U.S. residents ages 18 and older from March 2 through March 13.
Here’s a look at some of the results.
The Financial Services Companies
About 63% of the companies that participated in the LIMRA/LOMA survey predicted the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) — the virus that causes Covid-19 — would be comparable to a bad flu season.
About 91% of the companies said they have a pandemic stress scenario, and 94% said they have a business continuity preparedness plan.
About 84% said they had thought about the possibility that a pandemic could lead to employee deaths and operational disruptions.
The Business Owners
Only 39% of the business owners polled said they were very or extremely concerned about the outbreak.
About 75% said they have enough cash and credit to survive pandemic-related disuprtions, and 66% said they could handle a quarantine that kept employees from working on-site.
About 59% said they have a business continuity plan.
Only a little more than half — said the employees could work from home or remotely if a quarantine every went into effect.
The Consumers
Gallup found that about 61% of U.S. adults polled were very or somewhat confident aobut the U.S. government’s ability to handle an outbreak.
The likelihood that a survey participant would be very or somewhat confident about the government’s response was 85% for the Republicans, 58% for the independents, and just 43% for the Democrats.
Similarly, Democrats were much more worried than Republicans, and somewhat more worried about the independents in the survey panel, about the possibility of being exposued to SARS-CoV-2.
— Read Kaiser Measures Coronavirus Fear, on ThinkAdvisor.
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