Majority of people want borders closed as fear about COVID-19 escalates
A majority of people across 12 nations think the borders of their country should be closed until the coronavirus outbreak is contained, according to the latest Ipsos survey.
In a survey of 12,000 people across 12 major countries from March 12 to 15, countries in the Asia-Pacific region are most supportive of border closures – led by India (79%) and Vietnam (78%) ̶ which is not surprising, given where the disease was first encountered.
More than 3 in 4 people in the world’s other hot spot, Italy (76%), are also in agreement of this drastic measure followed by those in China (73%), and Russia (70%).
A significant driver in the growth for concern about COVID-19 is that more of us now believe someone close to us will be infected by the virus. The majority of people in Vietnam (67%), the United Kingdom (57%), India, Australia and Japan (51%) think someone close to them will get the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the countries that saw the biggest jump in this measure from a previous poll conducted on February 28-29 are all developed markets – the U.K. (+31 points), Australia (+29), and Canada (+28).
In addition to this, there’s been an increase of people who think their job is under threat as the pandemic spreads. There’s been a significant rise on this measure from previous polling done in Italy (63%, up 36 points) ̶ considering closures in its economy, followed by France (44%, up 14 points) and the U.K. (33%, up 13 points).
Overall, the perception of the threat the pandemic poses to a country has increased with a majority of people citing it as least as a high threat in all countries, except for in Canada (32%), Russia (37%), the U.K. (45%) and Australia (46%).
