Canadians Confidence In Local Healthcare Declines Amid COVID-19 Pandemic - Poll

Canadians' confidence in their local healthcare system declined by 10 percent since February, driven by such decline in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Angus Reid polling data released on Thursday revealed

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2020) Canadians' confidence in their local healthcare system declined by 10 percent since February, driven by such decline in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Angus Reid polling data released on Thursday revealed.

Between February 4 and 5, 63 percent of Canadians expressed confidence in their local public healthcare systems, declining to 53 percent between March 20 and 23, the poll results showed.

"Confidence in community healthcare systems to handle the outbreak has dropped significantly (16 points) in British Columbia from last month. The same is true in Ontario (22 points). Overall, 53 per cent of Canadians have confidence that their community healthcare is prepared to deal with the pandemic," Angus Reid said.

The data revealed that confidence remained at the same level in the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba as well as across Atlantic Canada.

Overall, Canadians are largely satisfied with the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the country's political leaders, with 64 percent saying the Federal government is doing a good job. Among the provinces, only the British Columbia government experienced a slip in approval rating of 2 percent.

Canada has seen a sharp rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases, with government data revealing that the country has recorded almost 2000 new cases since Monday.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. More than 487,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 22,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.