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What will the future look like after the COVID-19 emergency? Italians are divided: on one hand, there are people who focus on the more practical aspects, mainly related to the return to normality and the new rules that need to be respected; on the other side, there are people who look at the hypothetical “new normality” either with hope or with fear.
This is what emerges from an in-depth focus on the data coming from BVA Doxa tracking study on the opinions and predictions of Italians in Coronavirus times, thanks to the use of the exclusive qualitative-quantitative tool T@lk.
Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and discovering that in the face of new data on the current emergency, it was decided to start a new phase, with further changes and with the introduction of new rules. Try to describe what will happen during this new phase, and explain in detail how our everyday life will change and what will happen compared to the current phase.
This is the question asked by BVA Doxa research on the opinions and predictions of Italians in Coronavirus times, which is part of a weekly observatory started on March, the 20th. The answers to this specific question – asked in the period of May 8-11 – were analyzed with T@lk. T@lk is an exclusive tool by BVA Doxa that combines mixed research techniques, in order to obtain the richness and depth typical of qualitative research, while using numbers of quantitative research.
The survey reveals that Italians are divided into two macro groups when it comes to predicting the upcoming future: on one hand, 54% of respondents, focus more on the practical side of the situation and try to think about the best way to go back to their everyday life and activities. On the other hand, 46% of the interviewees pay more attention to how the emergency is developing, assuming either positive or negative results.
LEARNING A NEW LIFE – The group of people who focus more on the practical aspects and who think about how to coexist and live with the virus (54%) can be divided into two clusters. The first cluster, which groups 28% of the respondents is called the “How to..”, and includes people who pay attention to how they have to change their work routines and practical activities in order to start a “new normal” phase post COVID19. In particular, these respondents are focusing on how their life as workers and consumers will change, and they got used to the new behaviors during the previous phases of the emergency.
In the second cluster, “Caring is sharing”, which is composed of 26% of Italians, people focus on the rules that must be followed in order to go back to a normal life with more freedom than the one we are experiencing right now. Social distancing, masks, and gloves will keep being part of our future life, and gathering together with many people, especially in closed places, will be banned in the near future as well.
HOPES OR NIGHTMARES? – The second main group (46%) can also be divided into two different clusters, where respondents seem to give an emotional interpretation to the new normality that awaits us.
The first cluster (25%) is called “Over the rainbow”: people in this group describe the development of the COVID19 emergency with hope, especially because they believe we will get back to normality and that we will all be able to do everything we did before the lockdown. These people are so optimistic about the future that they are planning holidays and activities for the upcoming summer. However, the remaining group (21%) shares the opposite feelings. According to the Italians in the cluster “White flag, black future”, all the efforts done until now won’t be enough to prevent the situation from getting worse, and therefore further restrictive measures will be needed to fight the emergency.
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