Singaporeans satisfied with government response against COVID-19

Transparency with accurate information for the public worked well in curbing the pandemic.

Singaporeans are fairly satisfied with the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the nation state in ninth place amongst 23 countries in terms of citizen satisfaction, according to a survey by BlackBox Research.

With an index score of 48, Singapore tied with Indonesia and was above the global average of 45. One factor attributing to the positive score is that 93% of Singaporeans felt that keeping the public informed on the virus with accurate information had worked to their favour in managing the pandemic.

Additionally, only 34% were surprised at how under-prepared their country was when handling the pandemic. However, this figure is well below the global average of 54%, and is one of the few countries that have the least citizens reporting this sentiment, alongside Taiwan (27%) and Vietnam (27%).

“Whilst a small percentage of Singaporeans feel that they could have been better prepared, this is partly due to a heightened expectation coming out from past epidemics such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), where Singaporeans expect the government to have all its bases covered when it comes to responding to similarly serious respiratory pathogens,” said David Black, founder and CEO of BlackBox Research.

On the businesses’ side, only one in four Singaporeans felt that business leaders responded well in the COVID-19 crisis, prioritising job security.

In other markets, China topped the index with the most citizens rating its performance favourably across all four indicators. Vietnam came in second (77), followed by a tie between the United Arab Emirates and India (59). However, New Zealand (56) is the only Western country with an index score higher than the global average—indicating that citizens in Western countries are generally less satisfied with their countries’ performances.

On the other end of the index, Japan ranked last due to its perceived poor political performance and business leadership, as well as lacklustre community performance. Hong Kong and South Korea also fared poorly with its citizens.