Results of a national survey released over the weekend show that most Filipinos believe the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been “adequate” except helping those who have lost their jobs.
The Social Weather Stations reported on Saturday, October 17, that 71 percent of 1,249 adult Filipino respondents said the government adequately ensured the public had enough information on how to fight COVID-19, while 22 percent disagreed and Six percent were undecided.
The result of the survey came as the Philippines recorded on Sunday, October, 18, a rise of 2,379 in its coronavirus tally, which has reached 356,618, according to the Department of Health.
Of the new infections, 172 are from Quezon City, 147 from Rizal, 136 from Bulacan, 117 from Caloocan City, and 101 from Cavite, the case report showed.
The Health department also said recoveries surged to 310,158, with 14,941 more cleared of the infection.
The huge increase is due to the department’s weekly release of data from its Oplan Recovery program, which tags a patient as having recovered after spending a certain amount of time in quarantine and upon the loss of symptoms, even without a confirmatory RT-PCR test.
Meanwhile, the death toll hit 6,652, after 50 more died of the illness. Eighteen of this number occurred in October, while 14 in September, 18 in June to August.
Active cases in the country are now at 39,808, which means 11 percent of the nationwide case tally are currently ill.
The SWS survey’s second question, interviewees were asked how adequately did the government ensure there was “extensive contact tracing,” of which 67 percent said adequate, 23 percent said inadequate while nine percent were undecided.
Majority of respondents also said the government adequately ensured there is affordable COVID-19 testing. The survey said 54 percent answered that the efforts were adequate, 33 percent said they were not, while 11 percent were undecided.
However, on whether the government was able to adequately help people who were left jobless by the crisis or not, only 44 percent said the efforts were adequate, while 46 percent voted “inadequate” and nine percent were undecided.
The SWS said the survey was probability-based and conducted from September 17 to 20 through mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing with 309 adult Filipinos in Metro Manila, 328 in Balance Luzon, 300 in the Visayas, and 312 in Mindanao.
The survey had sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao.
