Survey Proves: Low-educated West Sumatrans Ignore Health Protocols

PADANG - The results of a survey by the Central Statistics Agency of West Sumatra regarding community behavior during the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM) found that people with low education tend to ignore health protocols.

"From 3,789 respondents surveyed on July 13-20 2021, it was revealed that people with higher education are more obedient in implementing health protocols," said West Sumatra BPS Head Herum Fajarwati, quoted by Antara, Thursday, August 5.

According to him, based on the findings of people with high school education and below, only 69.6 percent want to wear a one-layer mask, 24.9 percent wear a two-layer mask, wash their hands 49 percent, keep a distance of 44.3 percent and avoid crowds 54 percent.

Meanwhile, 83.8 percent of residents with a college education wear a single-layer mask, 30.1 percent wear a two-layer mask, wash hands 63.2 percent, maintain a distance of 54.3 percent and avoid crowds 69.4 percent.

In addition, the survey revealed that respondents with higher education rate that people in their environment often do not comply with health protocols.

However, there is one positive thing when you see people around you don't follow the health protocols, as much as 66.2 percent or almost half say they don't like it and only 1.8 percent don't care.

Then when they found violators of health protocols, 63.1 percent of people immediately reprimanded them and 26.3 percent let them.

When implementing PPKM, 29.9 people continued to travel outside their homes up to four times to the same regency and city destination.

"But compared to before PPKM, there was a significant decline," he said.

In the survey, BPS also recruited 2,092 respondents who had vaccinated and revealed that 48 percent were due to personal awareness for prevention and another 48 percent because they were required by the government or superiors and 3.2 percent because of recommendations from health workers.

"This means that public awareness of following vaccination is quite good and realizing this is important for preventing the transmission of COVID-19," he said.

Furthermore, it turned out that the majority of respondents were found to be bored during the implementation of PPKM with a figure of 67.4 percent for male respondents and 61.5 percent for female respondents.

Regarding access to basic needs, 37.7 percent said it was easy to get, 37.2 percent was moderate, and 22.9 percent said it was difficult.

However, for medical devices as much as 22.8 percent of respondents are difficult to get, and for health services as much as 14.6 percent are still difficult to get.