UK Citizens Believe Their Government Handled the Coronavirus Worse Than Any Other European Country

With the second highest toll in the world behind America, the opinion of the citizens towards its government is quite low.

UK Citizens Unhappy with the Way their Government Handled the COVID-19 crisis

With the highest death toll in Europe, the UK can hardly counteract the opinion of its citizens in regards to the way it handled the sanitary crisis. And when we look back at how it came to be, it is easy to question the people in power, whom at the beginning had no intention of going into lockdown, telling everyone that creating a large immunity was the best way to fight it.

They did change their mind before the Prime Minister himself was infected and had to spend some time in hospital, but by then it might have already been too late as the damage was done, with a larger part of the population exposed and infected with the virus. Only 18% of those who answered the survey said that the UK did better than its neighbour, France. If you want to compare, which measures were taken, you can discover more on French news.

The Number of Deaths determining the way UK Citizens Judge the Efforts of their Government

It is quite possible that the level of distrust towards the government, in the way it faced this health crisis, is directly linked to the number of deaths. That would explain why opinion polls showed that people believe only the U.S. did worse than the UK, since they are the only country to have had more deaths.

Otherwise, people believe that their country has shown poorer resolutions and actions to face the pandemic than even Italy and Spain who also had a large number of deaths, a little below the UK.

Do Stats Confirm This?

The theory that the number of deaths is the one data which affects the most the people, can probably be confirmed by the way the opinion changed in a two-week period, when deaths in the two other countries were more numerous at the beginning and in smaller amounts during the second poll.

The response regarding Italy vs the UK showed that 30% said their country had done better than Italy and 22% worse, in the first poll and then it changed to 29% said the UK had done worse and 25% better. The comparison with Spain went exactly the same way as the one with Italy, showing a favourable opinion for the UK in the first and the opposite in the second one.