Gov’t COVID-19 response deemed adequate except for jobs help –SWS

A majority of Filipinos judged the Philippine Government’s response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to be adequate except when it came to providing help for those who lost their jobs during the pandemic, a September Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll found.

Results of the survey showed that 71 percent said the government’s effort to inform the public on how to fight the COVID-19 were adequate, while 22 percent found the effort to be inadequate, and six percent said they were undecided.

This gave a net adequacy score of +49 (percentage adequate minus percentage inadequate), according to the SWS.

Meanwhile, 67 percent found the government’s efforts to ensure that there was extensive contact tracing to be adequate, 23 percent said they were inadequate, while nine percent were undecided.

Contact tracing thus had a net adequacy score of +43.

The survey also showed that 54 percent found the government’s actions to ensure affordable COVID-19 testing to be adequate, while 33 percent said they were inadequate, and 11 percent were undecided.

This gives a net adequacy score of +21.

Meanwhile, only 44 percent found the government’s actions to provide help to the jobless adequate, according to the survey.

Forty-six percent found the efforts to be inadequate while nine percent were undecided.

The SWS said this gives the government a net adequacy score of -2 in terms of joblessness assistance.

The SWS survey was taken from September 17 to September 20 using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviews of 1,249 adult Filipinos.

It has a sampling error margin of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao.

The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2020 to obtain the national estimates. — DVM, GMA News