Multiple surveys from late July and early August 2021 show a clear, rapid increase in hesitancy around discretionary activities like travel and public leisure, especially among the vaccinated, within roughly four weeks of mid‑July 2021.

• Morning Consult’s “Return to Normal” tracking found that Americans’ average comfort with more than 40 leisure activities (shopping malls, vacations, sporting events, movie theaters, etc.) peaked at 55% around July 8–10, then fell every week in July, reaching 49% by the Aug 2–3 survey. Comfort among vaccinated adults dropped more sharply, from a record 55% in early July to 47% by early August, with noted declines in going to malls, restaurants, movie theaters and sporting events.(pro.morningconsult.com) This is squarely inside Friedberg’s “next four weeks” window after mid‑July.
• A Gallup poll conducted July 19–26 found concern about catching COVID-19 rising again (from 17% in June to 29% in July) and a growing share saying the better advice for healthy people was to stay home as much as possible (up from 35% to 41%), indicating more caution about normal out‑of‑home activities as the Delta wave hit.(news.gallup.com)
• For travel specifically, an August Fortune/SurveyMonkey poll reported that 61% of Americans said they were more concerned about traveling because of the Delta variant, with concern especially high among the vaccinated (72% of vaccinated vs. 40% of unvaccinated).(surveymonkey.com)
• A YouGov survey for The Points Guy (fielded Aug 18–20) found that, among people who travel at least occasionally, 49% of fully vaccinated respondents now felt less comfortable taking a domestic flight, 53% less comfortable with an international flight, and 35% less comfortable just traveling to a different city or town, specifically “in light of the delta variant’s spread.”(thepointsguy.com) The same piece cites a Cars.com mid‑August survey where 20% of respondents were canceling flights and driving instead for Labor Day, and 24% were changing their destination—direct evidence of altered discretionary travel plans.(thepointsguy.com)
• Morning Consult also reported that concern about the Delta variant was very widespread and rising between late July and late August, with 82% of U.S. adults saying they were very or somewhat concerned, and vaccinated adults notably more worried than the unvaccinated.(pro.morningconsult.com) This matches Friedberg’s intuition that vaccinated people, hearing about more breakthrough infections, would become especially uneasy.

Taken together, these data show that by early to mid‑August 2021—a roughly four‑week period after the mid‑July podcast—large shares of Americans, particularly the vaccinated, had become less comfortable and more hesitant about travel and other discretionary public activities, consistent with Friedberg’s prediction. While the surveys don’t directly measure “hearing about friends getting COVID,” they do show the predicted behavioral shift and heightened caution in nearly the exact timeframe he specified, so the forecast is best judged as right.