COVID-19 cases surged — and 1 in 5 Floridians just kept going out to eat, survey says
Despite their unvanquished need to wear bathing suits year-round, people in Florida love to eat. And they really love to eat at their favorite restaurants.
Even when it might not be the best idea.
As part of its daily coronovirus tracking for the week of June 15-21, SurveyMonkey reports that one of five of Floridians surveyed said they’d been out to eat at a restaurant or bar in the previous 24 hours — even as coronavirus numbers skyrocketed in the state. That’s 21 percent, a higher percentage than the national average of 18 percent.
Floridians have consistently been ahead of that particular curve over the past few months, according to the survey, which also tracks national and international reactions to the pandemic. Yet 42 percent of Floridians seem to believe they have done “a lot” personally to contribute to slowing the spread.
Read next: Is dining out safe?
This is what we call the Florida Fog: mistakenly believing oneself capable of great sacrifice when one is actually arguing with the waitstaff at Olive Garden for a fifth serving of breadsticks or making plans to attend the next sandbar party with a bottle of vodka and 100 of one’s closest friends.
SurveyMonkey’s findings about Florida loving its restaurants is echoed by the website Chef’s Pencil, which used Google Trends data to determine where the highest interest in dining out is in the country as the pandemic continues. Chef’s Pencil reports that Florida residents are second only to those in South Carolina in terms of being interested in dining out.
Survey Monkey also found differences in the ways Republicans and Democrats in Florida responded to questions about everybody’s favorite hobby, flattening the curve. While 44 percent of Republicans say the curve has been flattened in their community, only 12 percent of Democrats say the same.
Still, the number of Floridians who say the curve has been flattened has dropped by 11 percentage points, which is higher than the national average. Will two days in a row of record-breaking COVID-19 case reports drop that number further? Stay tuned.
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This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 12:58 PM.