Hawaii tops nation in worrying about COVID-19

Roughly 80% of Hawaii residents worry about COVID-19 daily, giving the state the No. 1 worry rank in a new nationwide report from SafeWise.

The data, which breaks down pandemic concerns by state, comes from SafeWise’s State of Safety survey, which was conducted in September by Lux Insights.

Researchers conducted a weighted survey of at least 100 people from each state to glean their results, which have an error rate of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

The survey showed that on average only 62% of Americans worried about the pandemic each day, said Andrea Harvey, SafeWise’s outreach director.

“Hawaii stood out to us. We thought it was pretty strange that they had one of the lowest case rates and some of the most concern,” Harvey said. “Some states just tend to be more worried and more concerned about what’s going on in their states than others.”

California, New York, Florida and Georgia rounded out the top-five list of most worried states after Hawaii.

The worry data comes as state Department of Health officials Sunday reported one new coronavirus-related death and 84 additional infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 488 fatalities and 33,207 cases.

The latest death was a Maui man in his 60s who had underlying health conditions and was hospitalized.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 376 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 53 on Maui, two on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.

Sunday’s new statewide infection cases include 52 on Oahu, 16 on Maui, eight on Hawaii island and eight Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, according to health officials.

The statistics released Sunday reflect the new infection cases reported to the department Friday.

In comparison, the U.S. coronavirus-related death toll Sunday was more than 581,000, and the nationwide infection tally was about 32.7 million.

SafeWise said the percentage of the population of each state worrying about the pandemic on a daily basis varied. Only about 44% of residents of Wyoming — the least worried of the 50 states — worried about the pandemic each day.

Alaska, North Dakota, Montana and Oklahoma also were among the five least worried states.

Researchers compared the “worry rank” with the CDC’s number of COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccines per 100,000 people in each state (as of February 2021) and found “no significant correlation between worry and cases.”

They found that in general, states with the higher case rates weren’t necessarily the most concerned. Likewise, those with high concern didn’t necessarily have the highest or lowest case rates.

“I live in Utah. Utah had one of the lowest levels of concern and one of the highest case rates,” Harvey said. “It seems that a lot of people here either they think that it’s kind of a hoax or it’s not something to worry about or it’s being overdramatized in the news. Meanwhile, they keep going out without masks, and it just keeps spreading because they aren’t really concerned about it. Being concerned means that you are going to be more cautious.”

Researchers did find that states in the survey with the lowest death rates tended to exhibit the least worry; however, that wasn’t true of Hawaii, which had the lowest death rate throughout the pandemic.

SafeWise found that most people in Hawaii were concerned about the pandemic on a daily basis; however, 9% said they were neutral, and 11% said they weren’t concerned at all.

When it came to how COVID-19 affected their personal safety, only 60% of Hawaii residents were affected, 14% were neutral and 26% weren’t affected.