Political

Public under-estimates public support for mask wearing

Deltapoll’s latest survey has a clever pair of questions – first asking people if they support mandatory indoor mask wearing in public places and then asking people what they think the public thinks on the same issue.

As you can see the public under-estimates how popular such mask wearing is with the public:

Deltapoll-survey-questions-on-mask-wearing-in-public-places

So, 77% of people support mandatory mask wearing indoors in public places, but the public also thinks on average that only well under half of the public supports it.

One caveat: the first question asks about ‘support’ and the second about ‘oppose’, so it’s not an exact like-for-like comparison. and there’s a well established pattern in polling that subtle wording differences can alter the results. However, given how badly off the public’s estimate of the public’s views is, though, this is unlikely to have altered the overall picture.

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