MaltaToday Survey | Even in pandemic, corruption is still the greatest concern after COVID-19

With COVID-19 infections shooting up it comes as no surprise that the pandemic is the topmost concern by far in a MaltaToday survey.

COVID-19 is indicated as the main concern by 81.3% of people, cutting across all age groups, regions, men and women. A similar survey last December also saw COVID-19 come out on top, albeit with a score of 46.2%.

The second highest concern is corruption with 7.1%, followed by the environment with 2.5%. Last December, corruption also placed second with 10.8%, followed by immigration.

Immigration does not feature as a concern in the latest survey.

The findings show that COVID-19 is a higher concern among women than men. Among women, 89.3% indicate the pandemic as their topmost concern, while 74.9% of men indicate COVID-19.

The pandemic is a concern for 76.6% of those aged between 16 and 35. However, in this age group, corruption comes in second with 12.6%.

Among pensioners, COVID-19 is the highest concern with 84.1%, followed by corruption at 7%.

On a geographic basis, COVID-19 hits the highest level of concern in the Southern Harbour region where 90.5% mention the pandemic as their topmost worry.

When the data is broken down by political allegiance, COVID-19 is a concern among 88% of Labour voters and 75.3% of Nationalist voters.

Of note is that among PN voters the second highest concern is corruption with 16.3%, followed by construction at 2.1%.

Corruption does not feature as a concern among Labour voters, with the second highest worry after COVID-19 being the Opposition at 2.7%.

Methodology

The survey was carried out between Monday 1 March 2021 and Friday 5 March 2021. 649 respondents opted to complete the survey. Estimated margin of error is 4.9% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.