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The approval of the Federal Government’s measures to combat the coronavirus has fallen significantly in the Austrian population since March. Only 53 percent think the government is handling the crisis correctly. This is the result of a study presented on Thursday that the Gallup Institute conducted in cooperation with Medienhaus Wien. The role of the media is also viewed more critically than at the beginning of the crisis.
The institute has been collecting the mood and media usage in the crown crisis on a regular basis since mid-March. For the current survey, 1,000 people were interviewed online between October 2-5. It is representative of the active population on the Internet aged 16 and over.
“We look through all the data, there is uncertainty, fatigue, perplexity,” Gallup Institute director Andrea Fronaschtz said at an online news conference Thursday. In a poll at the end of March, 91 percent believed that the government is handling the crisis correctly. Only slightly more than half (53 percent) currently believe that the healthcare system is well prepared for the fall. Many find the Corona stoplight to be basically sensible, but confusing (47 percent), 31 percent say it adds nothing, 17 percent say it creates clarity. The willingness to temporarily give up civil liberties has fallen to 70 percent (from 95 percent at the end of March).
“Confidence in decline”
If in June more than half of Austrians (53 percent) believed that the pandemic was under control, less than a fifth (18 percent) currently believe it. “Overall, we are seeing a decline in confidence that cannot be explained by personal concerns,” Fronaschtz said. The proportion of people who did not suffer any loss of income due to the outbreak of the crisis remained stable at around 60 percent.
Therefore, the future is evaluated more pessimistically than in summer. 31 percent believe that the worst is yet to come and only 8 percent think that the worst is over. 52 percent believe the situation will remain largely as it is now. In June it looked different, at that time only 11 percent believed that the worst was yet to come, in September this proportion rose to 38 percent. 56 percent fear a second wave, 45 percent do not.
Work of the parts valued less positively
The work of the political parties is valued less positively than in March. This picture can also be seen with individual politicians: Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Green) is the most positive with 46 percent of mentions. He is better rated than Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (vice president), who has fallen to 41 percent (up from 80 percent in March). In contrast, SP politicians Pamela Rendi-Wagner (14 to 19 percent), Michael Ludwig (6 to 13 percent) and Peter Hacker (6 to 10 percent), as well as NEOS chief Beate Meinl-Reisinger (7 to 10 percent).
The role of the media is also viewed less positively. While a quarter of Austrians said in March that they helped recognize the dangers and contain the crisis, the figure is now just 17 percent. For the first time, slightly more people believe that the media spread panic (21 percent) rather than help. Most evaluate the role of different media differently (59 percent). “If the media is perceived to only convey the respective political message and we are skeptical about the government’s measures, then this skepticism rubs off on the berbinger,” Fronaschtz said.
The use of the media has also changed. Meanwhile, a third (32 percent) no longer report on the corona crisis, among young people aged 16 to 30 it is even 41 percent. In March, 92 percent said they learned about the crisis every day. Television is still used more frequently to keep up-to-date on the coronavirus, but here too, as in almost all types of media (except for print or digital magazines, where there was a slight increase), use has decreased ( 88 to 70 percent).
