HSRC commences public survey to assess awareness of Covid-19 among South Africans
DATE: 27 March 2020
Pretoria, Friday 27 March 2020 – The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) today announced that it would launch its public survey to better understand what the South African public knows about Covid-19, state of readiness to deal with this global pandemic and how they feel about it.
The survey comes within the context of a rapidly rising infection rate amongst South Africans necessitating a declaration of a state of disaster and national lockdown effective midnight on Thursday 26 March 2020 to help control the spread of the virus.
How will the study be done?
The study will consist of two parts.
One will use the #datafree Moya Messaging social media platform to gather data from approximately four million members while the second part will include qualitative interviews with participants using the telephone, video platforms or through an internet-based questionnaire.
Due to the urgency of the situation, the survey will employ a Rapid Assessment and Response (RAR) approach.