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The Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London published its 10th report on COVID-19 on 20th March 2020, titled “Public Response to UK Government Recommendations on COVID-19: Population Survey, 17-18 March 2020″*.
Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:
“The new data from the Imperial College group is important, and it is good to see relatively high proportions of people making efforts to promote good public health practice, for example, with increased levels of handwashing. We know from previous studies that sustaining good hand hygiene over a longer time period is very difficult, so it will be important to follow up with new surveys like this again in the weeks and months to come.
“Their data shows that 77% of people are ‘worried’ about the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK. It would be intriguing to understand the viewpoints of the 23% who do not describe themselves as worried. Are these people calm and composed and accepting of the current situation, or is there a significant level of complacency resulting in less compliance with social distancing and handwashing?”
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