No less than 23 % of the population would adhere to a conspiracy theory according to which the new coronavirus has emerged in a laboratory.
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August 3, 2020 19: 08
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One-in-four canadians is believed that the virus was created in the lab, reveals a survey
The canadian Press
Nearly one-in-four canadians believes that the COVID-19 has been created in the laboratory, reveals a series of strokes of the probe of the national Institute of public health.
From the beginning of the pandemic, the health authorities have held to the eye the beliefs and perceptions of citizens, as those directly affect the enforcement of the guidelines. And the results revealed Monday are anything but reassuring.
No less than 23 % of the population would adhere to a conspiracy theory according to which the new coronavirus has emerged in a laboratory. Not to mention that the same proportion of respondents had not yet done a head when they were asked about it in June.
It is interesting to note the influence of the conspirationnisme seems to be even stronger among the health workers. Up to 28% of them supported this conspiracy theory. Another 13 % believed in a link between the virus and the technology for 5G, compared to a rate of 6 % in the general population.
Several telecommunications towers have been the target of arson in the last few weeks for this reason. As its name indicates, the 5G is the standard of the fifth generation that the cell phone companies deploy gradually throughout the world. Some of the towers damaged were not even equipped with this technology.
The Quebec hard hit by the pandemic, would be more easily seduced by such erroneous beliefs, either those who were already disadvantaged and those whose incomes have fallen, who have lost their jobs or who have been off work since the advent of the crisis of the COVID-19.
The polls were conducted online with 1,000 Quebec adults, with questions that evolve according to the context, from 21 march to 31 may. The sample is briefly increased to 2000 respondents in the course of the month of June. According to the generally accepted standards of the industry survey, online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error, because they are not based on a probability sample of the population.
The mask increasingly adopted
Even if one third of those surveyed were of the opinion that the media has been the swelling and that the government hides important information in connection with the health crisis, they were more likely to wear the mask.
Only 6% of people said to cover his face when they left their home at the end of march, when the wearing of the mask was not yet recommended by public health officials. Two months later, 68 % of Quebecers said they wear a mask or cover their face in public places, where the separation physical was not possible.
Among those who did not, 26 % did not have confidence in this measure or believe it to be unnecessary.
The residents of the Greater Montreal, the epicenter of the pandemic in Quebec, were generally more likely to wear the mask than respondents based elsewhere in the province.
These data do not, however, account of the evolution of attitudes since the government has made the wearing of the mask mandatory in all enclosed public places from mid-July.
The national Institute of public health of Quebec (INPSQ) continues to take the pulse of the population, including through comments on social networks, whose analysis is in preparation.
