Gallup: Fewer Americans are avoiding public places

May 21 (UPI) -- Gallup unveiled new data Thursday showing that significantly fewer Americans avoided public places by the end of last week compared with the start of the week and the previous month.

The data showed a 6-percentage-point decline in U.S. adults avoiding public places from Monday, May 11 to Sunday, May 17.

Seventy-one percent of people said they avoided public places May 11 compared with 65 percent May 17.

The survey also showed double-digit declines in people avoiding public places from the previous month.

A sharp uptick was seen in restaurants in particular as they have reopened dining areas in some states after previously being limited to take-out or delivery options.

Last week, 21 percent of U.S. adults said they had visited a restaurant in the past 24 hours compared with 13 percent the week prior.

Gallup added that over the past five weeks, the the largest decline was in avoiding small gatherings. The number of U.S. adults avoiding such gatherings has dropped 21 percentage points from 84 percent April 12 to 63 percent May 17.

There have also been double-digit percentage declines in people avoiding travel by plane, bus and subway over the past five weeks. The number dropped from 89 percent April 12 to 76 percent May 17.

The number of people "completely" or "mostly isolating" themselves from people outside their household has also continued to decline from 74 percent on April 12, to now 55 percent. This is lower than the 58 percent reported March 22, before most states had issued shelter-in-place orders.

Still, the majority of people are avoiding public places and 71 percent said that healthy people should stay home as much as they can to curb the spread of the virus.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that simply easing or lifting restrictions on citizen activity is not sufficient for most Americans to want to resume their normal lives," Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey Jones said in a statement. "Recently, Gallup found targeted quarantines of those infected with coronavirus and improved medical therapies to treat it are the most important factors Americans are taking into account in deciding when to get back to normal."

Results were based on a survey of 4,117 random U.S. adults with a margin of error at 3 percentage points.