Coronavirus: Australians toeing the line on isolation, ABS reports

Australians have reported a near total commitment to social isolation, new ABS data shows.

Donna Eddy helps her son Phoenix with school work at their home in Sydney. Picture: Getty Images

Australians have reported a near total commitment to social isolation, with 98 per cent of households saying they have been keeping their distance from people, while nine in 10 are avoiding public spaces and gatherings, according to a new ABS household survey.

The latest figures speak to the country’s success in suppressing the spread of the virus, with infection rates dropping below 1 per cent in recent days. Australians’ compliance contrasts powerfully with scenes of Americans protesting against lockdown measures in parts of that country.

One in seven of the 1000 households surveyed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics over the first week of April said they were wearing a face mask as a precautionary measure, while approaching two-thirds reported they have self-isolated, or stayed at home.

The special survey, part of the ABS’s commitment to more frequent measures of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, also asked households about changes to the job situation over the past month.

Close to a quarter of respondents said they worked fewer hours during the first week of April versus a month ago, while 12 per cent said they worked more as a result of the crisis. The proportion of surveyed households who said they had a job fell only 3 percentage points, to 63 per cent from 66 per cent.

Women were generally more likely than men to have changed their behaviours as a result of the health crisis, the ABS data showed, although the margins were generally slim.

The survey was conducted in the week following the government’s announcement of its $130bn wage subsidy program, JobKeeper. Free childcare for working parents was announced on April 2. The next survey will ask about the first one-off $750 payment – which was distributed during the first week of April – and how it was spent.

On Tuesday the ABS, using the Australian Taxation Office’s single touch payroll system, will release the first in a much anticipated weekly series tracking the impact of the pandemic on jobs and wages.

Treasury economists expect the jobless measure will reach 10 per cent in the coming weeks and months, despite the government’s massive wage subsidy program, which is expected to keep stood down workers attached to their employers via a $1500 a fortnight payment.

Westpac’s widely followed monthly consumer sentiment survey revealed a dramatic collapse in household confidence in April, as the gauge dropped by the most in its 47-year history to approach the lows of previous recessions.