Since the start of the new round of Life With Corona-survey in October, many countries have been facing a second wave of the pandemic. In addition to sharply increasing case numbers, this has also meant newly implemented containment measures.
During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic we saw generally high support for the government-implemented containment measures in Germany, UK, and the US. During the second wave of the pandemic, around 80% still support the measures in Germany and the US, but only 68% and 59% in Portugal and the UK, respectively. In Argentina, only just over a quarter of the respondents (28%) agreed with the measures.
In all of these countries, women were likely to be more supportive of the government measures compared to men. This was particularly true in the UK, where 65% of women were supportive as opposed to 52% of men, as well as in Argentina (34% of women, 22% of men). In Germany and the United States the difference was fairly small.
Those who were unsupportive of their governments’ measures were split into two different camps: Those who thought the measures were too strict and those who considered them too lax. In the US, 58% regarded the measures as too weak whereas 42% thought they were too strict, while in Germany, the majority (68%) saw them as too strict and only 16% too lax.
