Public opinion on COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: Disruption to public lives and trust in government's immunisation performance.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has stretched Bangladesh government's capability for disaster engagement. As normalcy is interrupted, people's confidence in the government in ending the crisis needs evaluation, especially considering the past vaccination successes in Bangladesh and growing worldwide vaccine hesitancy amidst the COVID-19 misinfodemic. This study assessed the level of public life disruption due to the pandemic at the micro-level and how much impact it had on people's trust in the government's capacity for successful national immunisation. Given the infectious nature of the pandemic, the study conducted an online survey of 2291 respondents, distributed proportionally across sex and income groups. We conducted bivariate analyses and fitted generalised linear models to assess disruption to respondents' lives, and their trust in the government's immunisation ability, which were measured using multiple parameters. Nearly 50% of the respondents reported multifaceted disputations in their daily lives, with 90% suffering financially. Trust in the government was very low at the time of the survey as only 11.3% of respondents had faith that the government could successfully conduct a mass vaccination campaign. Rural residents and non-earning members of families found their lives to be less disrupted. Comparatively higher income families and highly educated individuals had lesser confidence in the government's inoculation capabilities. For the vaccine campaign to be successful, effective risk communication and timely display of data-driven decision-making efforts targeting the groups who are more sceptical of immunisation campaigns could be of significance to the Bangladesh government.