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35% of Canadians with COVID were afraid they might die: poll

On average, people said they were sick for 13 days
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Registered nurse Liana Perruzza attends to a patient in a COVID positive room in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul’s hospital in downtown Vancouver, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Just over one-third of Canadians surveyed said they were worried they could die after contracting COVID-19, according to a poll released by Leger Tuesday (Dec. 22).

The poll was conducted as part of a series of survey carried out by polling and marketing research firm Leger throughout the pandemic. Of the 21,225 people contacted, 303 told pollsters they were infected with COVID-19.

Of those surveyed, 27 per cent said they were “sick unlike anything I have ever felt,” while 16 per cent were each very sick and somewhat sick. Thirteen per cent each said they were either not very sick or hardly sick at all, while 14 per cent had no symptoms. Both men and women had similar results, while older Canadians were more likely to be sick unlike anything they had ever felt before.

On average, those surveyed told pollsters they were sick for 13 days, with women on average sick for nearly six more days than men. Older Canadians were also sick for longer than younger ones. Of the 303 who were infected with COVID-19, 20 per cent said they got it from a family member, 19 per cent said they got it at work, 13 per cent got it from someone close to them, 25 per cent got it from elsewhere outside the home and another 23 per cent did not know where they got it from.

Thirty-five per cent of Canadians said they were afraid of dying after contracting COVID, with men slightly more likely to be worried. Millennials Canadians were slightly more worried about dying than older people.

Pollsters found that 24 per cent of people knew someone who had died of COVID-19. As of Tuesday, there have been at least 515,314 cases of COVID-19 in Canada and 14,332 people have died.

READ MORE: B.C. records 41 COVID deaths and 1,667 new cases over the weekend


@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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