Abstract The extent to which citizens comply with newly-enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns strongly affects the propagation of the virus and the number of deaths from COVID-19. It is however very difficult to identify non-compliance through survey research because claiming to follow the rules is socially desirable. Using three survey experiments, we examine the efficacy of different “face-saving” questions that aim to reduce social desirability in the measurement of compliance with public health measures. Our treatments soften the social norm of compliance by way of a short preamble in combination with a guilty-free answer choice making it easier for respondents to admit non-compliance. We find that self-reported non-compliance increases by up to +11 percentage points when making use of a face-saving question. Considering the current context and the importance of measuring non-compliance, we argue that researchers around the world should adopt our most efficient face-saving question.

The novel coronavirus reached the United States and Canada almost at the same time. The first reported American case was January 20, 2020, and in Canada it was January 15, 2020 (Canada, 2020; Holshue et al., 2020). Yet, the response to this crisis has been different in the two countries. In the US, President Donald Trump, prominent Republicans, and conservative media initially dismissed the dangers of COVID-19 (Stecula, 2020). The pandemic became politicized from the early days, and even though Trump and Republicans have walked back many of their initial claims, there continue to be media reports of partisan differences in public opinion shaped by that early response. At the same time, the response in Canada has been mostly characterized by across-the-board partisan consensus among political elites (Merkley et al., 2020).

Households in Canada and Australia have exhibited similar trends in the gendered allocation of additional child care responsibilities resulting from policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we employ survey data to analyze the extent to which policy interventions related to COVID-19 have exacerbated gender disparities in child care obligations. We find that existing asymmetrical distributions of child care obligations in Canada and Australia have been amplified during the pandemic, resulting in a disproportionate burden on women. We also find that, throughout the pandemic, women in households with children report poorer mental health than men do.

La maladie du coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) a poussé les organismes de santé publique et autres respon sables gouvernementaux à apporter des changements rapides, importants et parfois contradictoires aux politiques, en réaction à la nouvelle information. Les auteurs étudient les répercussions de ces change ments sur l'adhésion du public à ces décisions en se penchant sur le cas de l'évolution des directives quant à l'usage du masque par les personnes asymptomatiques. Les recommandations officielles relatives à l'usage de masques au Canada étant passées de la dissuasion à la contrainte, les auteurs étudient les constats tirés d'un sondage d'opinion publique en cours visant à analyser les fluctuations actuelles des taux d'adoption du port du masque et des niveaux de confiance du public dans les institutions gouvernementales. Les au teurs constatent que les Canadiens affichent des niveaux élevés d'adhésion aux politiques changeantes sur l'usage du masque et que la confiance dans les autorités de la santé publique demeure constante, malgré ces changements. Mots clés : changement de politiques, confiance dans les institutions, COVID-19, masques, opinion pub lique Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in rapid, substantial, and at times contradictory policy changes as public health agencies and government officials react to new information. We examine the implications of such changes for public compliance by drawing on the case of revised guidance on mask usage by asymptomatic individuals. As official recommendations on the use of masks in Canada shift from discouraged to mandatory, we draw on findings from an ongoing public opinion study to explore contem poraneous changes in rates of mask adoption and levels of public trust in government institutions. We find that Canadians exhibit high levels of compliance with changing policies on mask usage and that trust in public health officials remains consistent despite policy change.

The revised guidance on masks from public health officials has been one of the most significant COVID-19 policy reversals to date. Statements made at the outset of the pandemic, including those from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Surgeon General, and the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, all actively discouraged asymptomatic members of the general public from wearing masks. However, on April 3, 2020, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations that called for nonmedical masks, such as cloth face coverings, to be worn in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (Adams, 2020). Canadian public health officials quickly followed with their own guidance for wearing nonmedical masks or face coverings when out in public; however, they have stressed that doing so is optional for asymptomatic persons and should be seen as a complement to existing precautionary measures such as physical distancing and hand hygiene, particularly in cases where physical distancing may not be feasible (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2020). Emphasis was placed on nonmedical masks serving not to protect the wearer, but rather others who come within close proximity of the wearer. Echoing her public statements on the matter, Canada's chief public health officer Tweeted that “[w]earing a NON-MEDICAL mask in public settings has not been proven to add any protection TO the person wearing it, but it can be an additional way to prevent spread FROM an infected person to others” (Tam, 2020).