MOSCOW, 14 September 2023. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the findings of a monitoring study on the Russian opinions on the COVID-19.

Catch the wave

Along with increasing COVID-19 cases in September, more Russians are afraid of getting ill with the COVID-19; 41% are extremely afraid or somewhat afraid of contracting the coronavirus disease. In June this figure was lower (33%).

Today every fourth respondent is confident that nothing will happen either to him/her or to his/her relatives (24%); the same percentage of the respondents have not even thought about that (26%).

Since 2020, the level of anxiety about the coronavirus has been fluctuating, along with the spread of the infection, with a high in 2020 (71% in June and December 2020), when seven out of ten Russians were afraid of contracting the virus. As early as March 2021 the situation became stable, and the anxiety levels dropped to 58%; a year later, in March 2022, the percentage was at 44%.  In recent two years, anxiety started to grow in the beginning of the epidemiologic season. There was also a growth in September (57%) and December (53%) 2022.

The topic of the COVID-19 is getting less popular: since last year the number of those Russians who do not think about the coronavirus has been growing (17% in December 2022; 26% in September 2023); today they amount to a quarter (vs 9% during the COVID-19 peak season in June 2020). In addition, since 2022 the number of those who are confident that nothing will happen either to them or to their families is large compared to 2020-2021 (with a high of 28% in June 2023). 

Who are afraid of the coronavirus?

Those who are more afraid of getting ill with the COVID-19 are often older age persons (52%) - every second respondent in the group of those aged 60+ (7% are very afraid; 45% are somewhat afraid). This percentage is lower among those aged 18-24 (22%). Anxiety levels because of the fear of getting COVID-19 in older age cohort is declining slower than in those aged 18-24: since 2020 there has been a three-fold decrease in the share of the “anxious” young people aged 18-24 (63% in September 2020); and a 1.5-fold decrease in the group of those aged 60+ (75% in September 2020).

Other factors are gender (women tend to be more afraid than men - 46% vs 37%), income (the rich are less worried than the those with average and low income - 34% vs. 45%), and media consumption model (52% of TV viewers; 33% of Internet users).

VCIOM-Sputnik all-Russian telephone survey was conducted 11 September, 2023. A total of 1,600 respondents aged 18 and older took part in the survey. Survey method: telephone interviews, stratified random sample based on a complete list of mobile phone numbers in use in Russia. The data were weighted for socio-demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.5%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes to the wording of questions and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.

Key effectiveness indicators, survey of 11 September, 2023:  cooperation rate (CR)* = 0.7769; minimum response rate (MRR)** = 0.0155; response rate (RR)*** = 0.0943.