Half of healthcare workers in the United Kingdom consider the public to be more to blame than the government for the recent surge in the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to poll results from the YouGov polling company, published on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th February, 2021) Half of healthcare workers in the United Kingdom consider the public to be more to blame than the government for the recent surge in the daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to poll results from the YouGov polling company, published on Thursday.
"Overall, half of healthcare professionals (50%) say they hold the public most to blame for the recent rise in COVID-19 cases in the last month, compared to 35% who think the government is most to blame. One in ten (10%) blame neither more than the other," the pollster said in a statement.
According to the findings, among respondents who are National Health Service (NHS) staff, 48 percent hold the general public accountable for the rise in COVID-19 cases, while 37 percent blame the government. Among those working in the private healthcare sector, 58 percent lay blame on the public, and only 27 percent on the government.
"While there is some disagreement among healthcare workers about who is most to blame for the number of COVID-19 cases, there is clear agreement that the public is not taking the latest lockdown as seriously as the first (83%), including 38% who think people are taking things "much less" seriously this time around," the statement added.
As for the general public, the vast majority 72 percent believe that UK citizens are not taking the current lockdown as seriously as the first one introduced back in March, the pollster said.
The UK has experienced a spike in new COVID-19 cases and deaths following the emergence of a new highly infectious COVID-19 variant in southeast England in December. The discovery of the new strain prompted the UK government to implement a nationwide lockdown in England the third one since the outbreak of the pandemic in early January.
