Perceptions of the level 3 alert in Auckland
There’s an interesting poll in the NZ$ Herald asking whether the four-day extension to the Auckland level 3 ‘lockdown-lite’ was appropriate or not. Here’s a graph of the regional results (excluding the worryingly-small fration of “don’t knows”). The purples are ‘yes, should have been extended’, with the light purple being ‘the four day extension was appropriate’ and the dark being ‘longer would have been better’. The oranges are ‘no, should not’, with the light orange being ‘should not have been extended’ and the dark being ‘should not have happened at all’
As you can see, there’s pretty strong consensus across the country. You’d expect people outside Auckland, who get the benefits but with less of the cost, to want tighter restrictions, and the patterns seem to fit that.
The Herald also explores differences by age, gender, and income. It’s hard to say anything too strong about many of the differences, because we’re only quoted a margin of error for the whole survey, not for any of the subgroups. In some cases I can work it out: if Auckland and Canterbury were represented in the sample in proportion to their actual population sizes, the difference between the purple bars would be right about at the margin of error. In general, though, the overall margin of error is pretty useless for most of what makes the story interesting.
Oh, and also.
Auckland is strongly divided over whether extending the lockdown was an appropriate response to the resurgence of Covid-19, a new poll shows.
But the exclusive new poll shows rest of the country was far more accepting of the Super City being kept in alert level 3 for almost three weeks – with many wanting it extended even longer.
Emphasis added.
No. That’s really not what the poll says
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Hi there I would be interested to know why you think the small number of don’t knows is “worryingly small” I would have thought most people would be likely tohave a view on lockdown as it affects all of us.
Regards
Viviane
4 years ago
Most people would have a view, but most people I don’t think should be sure. I would have expected more people to say: slightly higher risk of outbreak spreading vs a few hundred million dollars economic loss — I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision. The last Colmar Brunton poll had 14% Don’t Know for preferred party, and that’s a much more straightforward decision and one that people will actually need to make.
To be fair, the pollers do really want to get a response from everyone, and they probably know how to get the most responses.
4 years ago
The ‘strongly divided’ phrase and the rest of the article is a classic example of a journalists ‘eatup
The real story is the country and Auckland is ‘overwhelming in favour’ of the extension , which I see the paper has now issued a correction for at the beginning of the story.
Along with the same papers beatup over its story on West and South Aucklanders getting tested suggests there is some covidimonium in the newsroom.
4 years ago
Wellington is often different to the rest of the country and I kinda put more weight on that because there is a high proportion working in govt so they have exposure
to pertinent information.
4 years ago