March 06, 2020: As the fear of coronavirus continues to grip the world particularly the West killing 3,390 people so far, most of the Pakistanis yet believe that the Covid-19 disease has been contained and would be over soon.

According to a survey conducted by IPSOS involving the samples from Pakistan and eight other countries including the US, UK, Canada, France, Australia, Germany, Japan and Russia, around 74 percent people interviewed in Pakistan believed that the outbreak had been contained and only 7 percent disagreed to it.

Unlike the Pakistanis, 33 percent Russians, 15 percent Japanese, 20 percent German, 19 percent Australians, 16 percent each of UK and French, 15 percent Canadian and 21 percent Americans have hopes for such betterment.

However, as far as awareness is concerned, Pakistanis lag behind all the said countries with 69 percent confirming of knowing the virus and 27 percent having not much information. Contrarily, the awareness level in Russia stood at 77 percent, Japan 92 percent, Germany 76 percent, Australia 89 percent, UK 92 percent, France 95 percent, Canada 85 percent and US 85 percent.

At the same time, among the 2,867 Pakistanis interviewed, 29 percent believed that the virus posed threat to their family, which was the highest ratio among the other countries. To the contrary, 51 percent believe that it posed a very little threat.

As far as the coronavirus’ threat to their country is concerned, Japan stood at top in such fear followed by Australia and US. While Pakistan and Canada stood at top to negate any such level of threat to the world followed by Germany and UK. However majority of the interviewees expressed fear the virus still posed threat to the world.

According to the survey, 60 percent Pakistanis expressed confidence in their healthcare services, 57 percent in doctors, 72 percent in WHO, 54 percent in hospitals, 61 percent in national government and 55pc in local government.

As far as the accuracy of information on the virus is concerned, 81pc Pakistanis showed confidence in television, 64pc each in medical professionals and friends and families.

However, 64pc of the Pakistanis believed that media had exaggerated the content of the virus outbreak and only 16pc opposed to the viewpoint.

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