SMRC Survey: Avoiding Crowds To Be The Most Difficult To Implement The COVID-19 Protocol

JAKARTA - Avoiding crowds in implementing health protocols is very difficult for the community to adopt a new normal life amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Though this is very important to break the chain of virus transmission.

This was revealed by Saiful Munjani Research and Consulting (SMRC) based on the survey results. The survey is about the government's policy response during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey was conducted in the period 18-20 June 2020 to 1,978 respondents.

The survey was conducted by contacting respondents by telephone. These respondents are people who have been surveyed in the previous period. The margin of error in this survey is 2.2 percent with a confidence level of 95 percent.

Respondents were asked to answer questions about compliance with the implementation of the COVID-19 prevention protocol in everyday life. As a result, people find it most difficult to comply with recommendations to avoid crowds in order to prevent transmission of the corona virus.

"Avoiding crowds seems the most difficult to do. The majority of people as much as 74 percent admit to having been in a crowd at least once a week or participating in an activity that was attended by more than 5 people," said SMRC Communications Director Ade Armando in a virtual SMRC survey release, Thursday, 25 June.

The rest, only 19 percent of the public admitted that they were never in a crowd once a week. Then, the other 6 percent said they didn't know or didn't answer.

"However, the majority of people admit that they often apply other protocols, such as wearing masks when going outside, washing their hands with soap regularly, and keeping their distance," said Ade.

The details, in the protocol for using masks, 91 percent of the public admitted that they often wear a mask when they leave the house, 8 percent admit they rarely wear a mask, and 1 percent admit to never wearing a mask.

Then, in the hand washing protocol using soap and running water, as many as 97 people admitted to washing their hands frequently, and the remaining 4 percent of the people rarely washed their hands.

Furthermore, in the protocol for maintaining distance, as many as 86 percent of the public admitted that they often kept their distance, 12 percent rarely kept their distance, 2 percent never kept their distance, and 1 percent did not answer.