- Three in four Sierra Leoneans (75%) “agree” or “strongly agree” that the government handled the COVID-19 pandemic better than the Ebola outbreak (Figure 1).
- Nine in 10 citizens (91%) say the government has managed the response to COVID-19 “fairly well” or “very well” (Figure 2). Only 8% say the government has done a poor job.
- Eight in 10 citizens (80%) “agree” or “strongly agree” that the country’s experience with Ebola prepared it to better handle the COVID-19 pandemic (Figure 3).
- Only 6% of citizens report that their household received COVID-19 relief assistance from the government, while 94% say they did not (Figure 4).
Three-quarters of Sierra Leoneans say the government managed the COVID-19 pandemic better than the 2014 Ebola outbreak, a new Afrobarometer survey shows.
Overwhelming majorities of citizens say that the government did a good job of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country’s experience with the Ebola outbreak made it better prepared to handle COVID-19. The two-year-long Ebola crisis claimed at least 3,955 lives in Sierra Leone. COVID-19 has resulted in 125 deaths in the country.
However, very few households report having benefited from government COVID-19 relief assistance. Many also say that relief assistance was distributed unfairly and that resources intended for the COVID response were lost to corruption.
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