A recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed at least 85% of Pinoys are worried about acquiring COVID-19, which is the same rate reported three months ago.
SWS conducted the poll from September 17 to 20 and revealed that 63% are worried a great deal, and 22% are somewhat worried about acquiring the respiratory disease.
Only 9% are worried a little, while 6% are not worried that anyone in their immediate family could get infected.
Balance Luzon recorded the highest worry rate of 87%, followed by the Visayas at 84%, Metro Manila at 83%, and Mindanao at 80%.
Meanwhile, the worry rate in Metro Manila, where the bulk of COVID-19 cases in the country are recorded, slightly decreased to 83% this month from 92% in May and July.
The SWS survey was conducted using a mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing Filipinos aged 18 years old and above across the country.
Of the 1,249 adult Filipinos, 309 of respondents are in Metro Manila, 328 in Balance Luzon, 300 in the Visayas, and 312 in Mindanao.
The sampling error margin is ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao.
As of September 28, the Department of Health reports the total number of COVID-19 cases at 307,288. Of the confirmed cases, 49,242 (16.0%) are active cases, 252,665 (82.2%) have recovered and 5,381 (1.8%) have died.
Also read: SWS survey: 45.5% adult Filipinos jobless
SWS: 7.6 million families experience hunger in past 3 months
SWS also recorded the highest incidence of hunger of the Philippines after 7.6 million families said they went hungry at least once in the past three months amid the pandemic.
The proportion of households who experienced involuntary hunger increased to 30.7 percent from July to September, breaking the record of 23.8 percent registered in March 2012.
The hunger trend in the Philippines has been rising since May 2020. The country made progress in 2012 after it decreased to 23.8 in March 2012 and continued to decline to 8.8 percent in December 2019.
The survey showed that 22 percent or an estimated 5.5 million families experienced moderate hunger in the last few months.
Moderate hunger is defined as those who experienced hunger “only once” or “a few times” in the last three months.
Meanwhile, there were 8.7 percent or 2.2 million households who experienced severe hunger or experienced it “often” or “always” during the covered period.