There’s clearly an ongoing and positive trend. The number of people feeling anxious has been steadily falling for weeks to its lowest level yet. In our latest survey, 71% of people said they had some anxious feelings, versus a previous peak of 80% back in April.

While it’s good to see this number coming down, that’s still a huge amount of people feeling the strain. In our survey we asked people to rate their anxiety from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (Very). Most people (74%) put themselves at 3 or below, but that still left 26% choosing 4 or 5.

We also wanted to try and figure out why anxiety levels were falling.

In many of the countries we surveyed, numbers of cases and deaths are falling and lockdowns are easing, both of which are likely to play a significant part. But our survey also revealed some more specific reasons.

As we mentioned above, buying food and earning money are two things people could be worrying about. Thankfully, we found both are problems fewer people are facing as time goes on.

Shopping difficulties have consistently fallen week-on-week, going from 41% of respondents reporting this issue in our first survey to 25% in our latest. While that still leaves a quarter of people having problems, it’s a significant improvement.

The number of people saying earning enough money is challenging has seen less change throughout our surveys. Only in the last few weeks have there been some signs of downwards movement.

In our latest survey, 27% of respondents reported this being an issue. That’s down 3% on our first survey, and down 6% from its last peak in mid-April. Again, this is a good sign, but still leaves a significant amount of people experiencing problems. It’s also worth noting that with doom-laden economic predictions for the near future, there’s a chance these improvements will be short-lived

While Covid-19-related anxiety levels are in decline, we can see a lot of disparity when we look at the current picture at a country-level.

Hot wheels: How will Covid-19 impact the automotive industry?

Buying or trading a car isn’t just about kicking some tires or the new car smell. It’s about taking that car out on the open road and feeling like you’ve found the one.

Now traditional test drives are off the cards due to Covid-19, but with showrooms starting to reopen, how has car buying been affected? We used our Consumer Research platform to investigate English-language conversations about buying a car to find out.

During the peak-lockdown months of March and April, mentions of buying a car online or via an app were 8% higher than average.

One of the most positive things about this conversation was the no-quibble guarantee offered by many online dealers (16k consumers spoke about how they loved this).

However, buying cars online won’t necessarily be revving engines throughout 2020.

Conversation about buying online fell again in May (by 25%) as the UK and some states in the US loosened lockdown measures and allowed showrooms to reopen. This indicates that, for many, online purchases were simply a temporary means to an end.

How might car sales fare later in the year?

In our Will Covid-19 Change Consumer Behavior in the Long Term? report, we found only 58% of respondents who planned to buy a car pre-outbreak still intend to in 2020. This signals that the pandemic could potentially have a huge impact on the already troubled automotive industry.

The last few years for the industry have been turbulent and, sadly, we can expect that theme to step up a gear in 2020 because of the Covid-19 crisis.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team