DUBLIN, June 24 (Xinhua) -- There are fewer people in Ireland who are strictly following the government COVID-19 guidelines than before, revealed a survey released here on Wednesday.
Only 59.9 percent of the respondents rated their personal compliance with the government COVID-19 advice and guidelines as high compared to the figure of 80.6 percent in April, said the Social Impact of COVID-19 Survey June 2020, conducted by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO).
This represented a 20.7-percentage-point drop when compared with two months ago when Ireland was hit hardest by the pandemic, indicating people's vigilance against the virus is loosening following the improvement of the COVID-19 crisis in the country.
"Women were more likely than men to report high compliance in June, at 68.4 percent and 51.2 percent respectively," said Eva O'Regan, a CSO statistician who was involved in the survey, the second of its kind carried out by the CSO since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country.
The survey, designed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Irish people's daily life, also found that 18.5 percent of people are very or extremely concerned about their employer's ability to provide a safe work environment in the context of COVID-19.
Nearly 20 percent of employees who are currently working from home do not have a suitable workspace with adequate equipment, said the survey.
According to the survey, almost 80 percent of the respondents said that they have reduced spending due to the COVID-19 restrictions while close to 41 percent of people reported that their weight has increased since the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions.
Ireland imposed a nationwide lockdown at the end of March. The lockdown measures have not been eased until mid-May. There was a time when nearly all the people in the country were ordered not to leave their homes except in some specific circumstances.
Currently, people in Ireland can travel up to 20 kilometers away from their homes and this restrictive measure is expected to be scraped on June 29 when the country is scheduled to enter the third phase in reopening its society and business.
Ireland reported five new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and six more COVID-19-related deaths on Wednesday, bring the total numbers to 25,396 and 1,726 respectively. Enditem
