Seventy-five percent of Canadians support a second lockdown if COVID-19 cases continue to rise, says poll

New polling from Ipsos suggests that most Canadians would be supportive of another widespread shut down if a second wave of the coronavirus manifested, according to Global News.

The outlet reported that Ipsos "found that 75 per cent of respondents would approve of quickly shutting down non-essential businesses in that scenario, with 37 per cent strongly supporting the idea."

The polling comes as Canada has been the site of a resurgence in coronavirus cases, with the number of cases being reported across the country surging by 50 per cent in the last two weeks.

“With continued circulation of the virus, the situation could change quickly and we could lose the ability to keep COVID-19 cases at manageable levels,” Dr. Theresa Tam said in a statement.

Ipsos Public Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker stated that as the amount of infections rise across the country, support for a lockdown similar to the spring will likely go up.

“People are really watching on a daily basis … (the) number of case counts going up, and they’re really worried,” he said.

“There is, generally speaking, a fairly consistent view that we need to be careful, that this is a real problem, that they believe that shutdowns and controls are a way of dealing with it,” he said.

Global News reported the "71 per cent said they’re confident their province is ready, with 29 per cent disagreeing. But the proportion of those critical of their province’s ability to handle another wave of the virus was highest in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, at 42 per cent."

The report revealed that "just under two thirds of Canadians" are concerned about contracting COVID-19, with 72 per cent of women being concerns versus just 55 per cent of men feeling the same way.

“They tend to pay less attention to their health,” he said of men. “They tend to be less concerned about things that are risky.”

It was also found that 63 per cent of those asked believed the vaccine should be made necessary once it is discovered—a number that has gone down 9 points since July.

This Ipsos poll was conducted between Sept. 11 and 14, 2020, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,000 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled.