Most Slovaks do not expect the third wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic to have a greater effect than the previous one, according to a 'How Are You, Slovakia?' survey carried out by the Slovak Academy of Science's Institute of Sociology, the MNFORCE agency and the Seesame communications agency on a sample of 1,000 respondents between October 5-10. A total of 17 percent of respondents expect the consequences of the third wave of the pandemic to be worse, while more than 33 percent expect that the consequences will be lesser. Respondents from the smallest municipalities and respondents with basic education are more pessimistic when estimating the impacts. Respondents from Bratislava are significantly more optimistic, with up to 60.3 percent of them believing that the consequences of the third wave will be smaller. There are no major differences between those who are vaccinated and those who do not want to be vaccinated when estimating the consequences of the third wave.
In terms of mental well-being, 16.8 percent of respondents are not prepared for the current wave of the pandemic. The youngest inhabitants (aged 18-29) and those for whom it is difficult to manage their household budgets assess their readiness as the worst. From a financial point of view, 30.4 percent of respondents are not ready to handle the current wave of the pandemic.
If, during the third wave of the pandemic, the Government again agrees to a country-wide lockdown, only 27.3 percent would agree with this measure and 45.1 percent of respondents would not. In such circumstances, respondents who had already been vaccinated would more agree (38.1 percent) than not agree (32.1 percent) with the country-wide lockdown. Among those who do not want to be vaccinated, there are up to 65.4 percent of those who disagree with the country-wide lockdown and only 14.4 percent of those who agree.
"The optimism of respondents who don't expect worse effects of the current wave of the epidemic compared to the previous one corresponds to expert estimates. An interesting finding, however, is that the possibility of the country-wide lockdown in the case of a worsened situation is supported by significantly more vaccinated than unvaccinated respondents," added Robert Klobucky of Slovak Academy of Science's Institute of Sociology.
