Canadians less likely than Americans to wear masks, poll reveals

A recent poll has revealed that while Canadians tend to support their government's handling of COVID-19 more than Americans support theirs, Americans are more apt to wear masks when out of their house.

British polling service YouGov surveyed Canadians a total of five times, with more than 1,000 participants each time. The polling service said this has made the results nationally representative, according to CTV News.  

The polling service has been consistently surveying a selection of 29 countries since the beginning of the pandemic, monitoring people's behavior toward COVID-19 and their response to it.

The report from YouGov, as of June 11, found that only 58 percent of Canadians were consistently wearing a mask when they stepped out of their homes. Thirty-one percent in the United Kingdom reported consistent mask-wearing, and only 21 percent of Australians wear a mask regularly.

All of these countries have fallen behind the US in mask-wearing, where it was found that 71 percent of Americans regularly wear a mask.

The highest density of those who regularly wear masks in public occurred in Asian countries, led by Singapore where 92 percent of the population wears a mask.

The study on personal hygiene showed that only 42 percent of Americans had improved their hygiene due to the pandemic, while 73 percent of Canadians said they had improved their hygiene under the same conditions.

Many Asian countries led the way in improving their hygiene, with 89 percent of Hong Kongers reporting that they had increased their hygienic habits amid the outbreak of COVID-19.

Canadians were among those most likely to avoid crowded public spaces, with 86 percent of citizens reporting they were doing so while only 24 percent of Americans reported that they were avoiding crowded areas.

It has yet to be seen how these numbers will fluctuate as the fall approaches, with many concerned that there may be a resurgence of the contagion.