Maui Now Survey: Respondents Divided on Coronavirus Concerns, Majority Very Concerned About Economy

Note: This post has been updated to explain the methods of how the surveyees were prospected.  Charts were also updated to provide better clarity of results.

On Monday, Sept. 20, Maui Now released a survey asking the public to share their opinions and attitudes toward current issues affecting Maui County from the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and its leadership.

Responses for the survey were collected for seven days between Monday, Sept. 20 to Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021. Announcements to the public to take the survey were posted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the Maui Now website.

Maui Now received 1953 verified responses with 98% identifying as Maui County residents and 2% identifying as non-residents.

The survey showed that concerns towards a coronavirus infection are roughly evenly divided amongst survey participants with more respondents leaning towards "not very" or "not at all."

On the contrary, the majority of the respondents are more concerned about Maui County's economy - 67% of participants saying that they are very concerned and 27% of participants saying that they are somewhat concerned about the economy.

The majority of survey respondents also showed disapproval of Maui County Mayor Victorino's handling of the coronavirus pandemic - with 81% of survey participants saying they disapprove and 19% saying they approve of his handling of the pandemic.

On the state level, survey takers showed a slightly higher percentage of disapproval regarding Governor Ige's handling of the coronavirus pandemic with 85% of survey participants saying they disapprove and 15% saying they approve of his handling of the pandemic.

In regards to the state's actions with vaccine mandates, 74% of respondents think that it is not a step in the right direction while 26% agrees that the mandates are a step in the right direction.

To help ensure accuracy, all participants were required to verify their information by logging in through one of the following services: HubHawaii.com, Facebook, Amazon or Google. E-mail addresses were also compared for duplicates to ensure each surveyee receives only one vote.