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In this uncertain time for our world, our nation and our business operations, a lot of important decisions are being made about staffing, budgets, overall business health and next steps. RBFF encourages all of its stakeholders to make informed decisions by using consumer insights to help drive decision-making.

Working with its partners at Colle McVoy, RBFF receives weekly information from The Harris Poll COVID-19 Tracker to help inform its Take Me Fishing and Vamos A Pescar campaigns. Beginning this week, RBFF is going to share tidbits from these surveys that relate to the fishing and boating industries.

For now, Americans stay patient

Right now, Americans are optimistic about overcoming the virus and getting back to normal, backing the current lockdown in overwhelming numbers despite the growing economic pain.

• Americans are siding with governors in saying their state’s social distancing restrictions are striking the right balance with just more than 1 in 10 saying they are too restrictive. And there is strong support across the political divide to keep them in place for now:
  • 7 in 10 Americans (69%) say their state is striking the right balance while 17% say they are not restrictive enough and only 14% too restrictive.
  • In polling featured on NBC News, over two-thirds of voters (67%) said they expect it to be at least a month before Americans should start returning to work and life as normal.
  • Meanwhile, financial stress is building for nearly 9 in 10 Americans as discussed with CNBC, and the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that economy and jobs is now the second most important issue (41% of voters) after the management of the coronavirus crisis (63%).

What businesses must do to protect consumers

No one single action will make Americans feel safer to return to work. But there are tactics consumers say will make them feel more welcome and at ease:

• In order to feel safe returning to work 61% want policies requiring employees to stay home if they feel sick, 48% say no meetings larger than 10 people and 47% say desks should be spaced 6-feet apart.

As an employer, it’s also very important to keep a pulse on your diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

• While the pandemic has led to countless numbers of uplifting stories, the story of Asian Americans being blamed for COVID-19 is not one of them. While the FBI has warned of potential surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans amid coronavirus, less than half of the public (45%) feel hate/discrimination has risen towards Asian Americans since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Staying home = staying safe

This week’s survey reveals three quarters of Americans are concerned with going to the polls five months from now. This supports an overall trepidation of public places, which could mean a ‘Cruel Summer’ at the boat ramp and popular fishing holes.

• Voting-by-mail has broad and popular support for the upcoming election: nearly three-fourths of Americans (73%), and a strong majority of both parties, approve of vote-by-mail in November’s presidential election.
• While more than 4 in 10 (45%) say they miss watching sports on TV and half (49%) miss attending sporting events in person, one-fifth of Americans (21%) say there is nothing that would make them feel safe to attend a sporting event again. In our polling for USA TODAY, only 6% said they would go to a game as soon as allowed.

Note: This study was fielded online among a nationally representative sample of 2,029 U.S. adults between April 18-20, 2020.

Stay tuned to the RBFF Blog for weekly consumer insights related to COVID-19.