A recent study shows that more than three-in-five BC residents do not want any restrictions to be imposed upon them following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Restrictions and mandates have not been in place since April 2022, after they were lifted by the province.
Although current COVID-19 cases across BC do not indicate that restrictions would come back into place, a BC-based surveyor, Research Co., conducted a study in which they asked residents how the return of restrictions would make them feel.
According to their data, 62% of British Columbians don’t want restrictions imposed upon them again. Those people believe that “there is no need for additional public health measures related to COVID-19,” at this moment in time.
In contrast to that statistic, 18% of BC residents want to see more restrictions put in place and for stricter public health measures in general to stop the spread of COVID-19.
And surprisingly, 9% of British Columbians don’t believe COVID-19 was real. They believe the worldwide pandemic was an intricately fabricated hoax.
Of the people who want more health measures put in place, most of those people (20%) live in Metro Vancouver, but 19% are Vancouver Islanders.
In March 2021, a poll was conducted to ask British Columbians if they believe COVID-19 to be a real and imminent threat and 82% agreed that it was. In Research Co.’s latest survey, that figure is down to 69%.
When asked about specific restrictions that were once in place, 23% of BC residents would welcome back the “vaccine passports,” 21% would welcome back mask mandates, 17% would be satisfied with capacity restrictions at venues and 6% still believe BC would benefit from banning travel across provincial and international borders.
When it comes to how BC residents felt about the government’s response and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 49% are satisfied with the actions of the federal government. Only 55% believed the BC provincial government handled the pandemic in a satisfactory way.
Similarly to the faith BC residents had in their governments, only 52% were satisfied with television news and just 48% were satisfied with the news reported over the radio.
“British Columbians who would like to see stricter guidelines to deal with the pandemic are more likely to be satisfied with the performance of news organizations on television (69%), radio (66%) and print (62%),” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co.
“Those who consider COVID-19 a hoax provide significantly lower marks.”
