Break the chain! 59% Delhi residents support 3-week lockdown, says survey

As the daily COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Delhi, a majority of residents in the national capital seem to support a lockdown to break the chain of infections. About 59 per cent of respondents in an online survey said they prefer another lockdown. Conducted by community social media platform LocalCircles, the survey received over 8,000 responses from residents across 11 districts of Delhi.

The survey sought to know the perception of Delhites about imposition of a complete three-week lockdown in the city. In response, 59 per cent respondents said 'Yes', while 36 per cent said 'No'. Only 5 per cent were indecisive. The question in the survey received 8,211 responses.

LocalCircles has shared the findings of the survey with the offices of Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and Chief Minister.

A similar exercise carried out by LocalCircles in the last week of March had seen only 16 per cent of respondents supporting a lockdown. The number of people supporting it has risen by 275 per cent in less than three weeks. The change in perception is attributed to the increase in number of cases and the struggle to find hospital, ICU beds and drugs like Remdesivir.

The respondents, however, categorically stated that while lockdown is imposed, all essential services must continue to function in the city so people do not face hardships in running their households.

LocalCircles said the survey was planned after the daily caseload sky rocketed in the last two weeks, and thousands of posts and comments from residents of Delhi started discussing public place restrictions, lockdown, night curfew and weekend curfew. The survey was intended to understand the collective pulse on what should be done to control the spread of COVID-19 in Delhi.

Delhi had reported 400 COVID-19 cases on March 15, which jumped to 17,282 on April 14. The positivity rate is currently at 15.92 per cent, with 7,67,438 positive cases, which is the highest ever in the state. Of the total respondents, 67 per cent were men and 33 per cent were women.

LocalCircles enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the government to make policies that are citizen and small business centric. The platform is also a pollster on issues of governance, public and consumer interest.

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