Survey: Eight in Ten Brazilians Say They Had Covid-19 or Know Someone Who Did

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A Datafolha survey published by Folha de S.Paulo newspaper on Saturday, December 19th, showed that 79% of Brazilians claim to have had Covid-19 or to know someone who had the disease, while 21% said they had not contracted the disease, nor did they know anyone who had been infected.

Almost half of respondents said that the person infected is a close friend. The survey also points out that the rate of people who feel that the pandemic situation in the country has worsened has increased from 43% to 73% between August and December.

The survey was conducted by cell phone with 2,016 adult Brazilians, between December 8th and 10th, in all regions and states in Brazil. The error margin is two percentage points plus or minus.

When asked who the infected person was, respondents answered as follows:

55%: an acquaintance
47%: a close friend
40%: a relative, but not living in the same household
27%: a neighbor
27%: a colleague at work or school
14%: a resident of the household.

Datafolha also asked what people think of the current situation of the pandemic in Brazil, and the rate of people who believe that the scenario is worsening rose from 43%, in a survey conducted between August 11th and 12th, to 73% in December.

On the other hand, those who stated that the situation has improved dropped from 46% to 21%; 4% answered that the pandemic is neither worsening nor improving, and 2% did not know how to answer.

Datafolha also asked respondents about their concern of contracting the coronavirus. 41% said they were very concerned but 24% say they are not concerned.

Pandemic figures in Brazil

On Saturday night, December 19th, Brazil counted 186,365 deaths by Covid-19 and 7,212,670 confirmed cases. According to data from state Health Secretariats consolidated by the media outlets consortium by 8 PM on Saturday, 678 deaths and 48,758 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours.

The rolling average of new cases in the past seven days has reached 47,439, the highest recorded in Brazil since the start of the pandemic, and 746 deaths, with an upward trend in 18 states and the Federal District (PR, RS, ES, MG, RJ, DF, GO, MS, MT, AM, AP, PA, RO, AL, CE, PB, PE, RN and SE).