More Americans venture out in public, especially to restaurants, but the majority are staying home

As shelter-in-place orders slowly expire and the coronavirus restrictions are being lifted, more Americans are venturing out in public. However, the majority in the U.S. are still staying at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new Gallup poll found that more Americans are leaving their homes, but still 65% of people are avoiding public places. This is a decrease from the survey from the week before that showed 71% were avoiding public places. The poll also discovered 63% of people are shying away from small gatherings, compared to 71% from the week before last week and 84% in mid-April.

Americans are still not taking public transportation, 76% of respondents said they are avoiding travel by planes, buses, and subways; the figure was down from 81% last week.

People are starting to frequent restaurants once again. Based on the May 11-17 poll of 4,117 U.S. adults, 21% said they had visited a restaurant in the past 24 hours, a significant increase from 13% the week before. The poll does not specify if the people dined at the restaurant or got take-out.

According to the poll, 47% visited a grocery store in the last 24 hours, and 30% have gone to their place of employment in the last day, both have been steady since late March.

When it comes to shopping at a store other than a grocery store, 25% said they visited a store in the past 24 hours, compared to 20% in the previous survey from a week earlier.

With fears of the coronavirus spreading, 79% of Americans say they wear face masks when they go out in public. There were 71% who said that healthy people should continue to stay at home, while 29% said healthy people should live their lives as normally as possible to avoid disruptions to work and business.

There were 51% of respondents who said they were worried about personally catching COVID-19, down from 57% in early April.

Gallup said that the percentage of people who are "completely" or "mostly isolating" themselves from people outside their household was at a new low of 55%.