Mumbai: With the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed an upheaval of everything familiar, whether it be daily habits, fitness routines, forms of news consumption, or ways of socializing. While the GOQii India Fit Report 2021 shares interesting insights into the impact of COVID-19 on people’s health and lifestyles, it majorly brought to the forefront change in citizens’ perception towards the vaccine rollout from the time it was announced to its launch, their acceptance of government measures to contain the pandemic and their preference for home remedies/Ayurvedic supplements as preventive measures against the virus. This was gathered through the COVID-19 Impact – The Way Forward survey that was conducted with over 10,000 respondents, spread across India. GOQii has over 5 million people spread across India, who are seeking to get healthier. Apart from the survey specific to COVID-19 and its Impact, inputs, and data points were collected from the large user base across step counts chronic diseases, sleep, nutrition, health risk assessment (health score), and daily user app logs.
GOQii, the smart-tech-enabled preventive healthcare company analyzed public opinion on the various parameters while deep-diving into the interest levels by age and gender. Though there was a huge wave of news sources spreading false facts and figures about the pandemic, most of the survey respondents referred to credible sources such as the Central Government, WHO, State Government, and COVID-related websites and apps for updates.
79% of the respondents felt that India was effective in curbing COVID-19. India, which has the second-largest population in the world was suffering severely from COVID-19, leading to strict lockdowns and restriction measures being employed across the country.
Interesting facts revealed that almost 89% of Indians feel that the Central government was effective in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic. As for the State and Local governments, only 25% and 22% of the respondents respectively, think that they were effective in curbing the spread of COVID-19. More than half of the respondents feel that although the State and Local governments have been somewhat effective in their measures, there is clearly a scope for them to do more.
Back in December 2020, when asked about the COVID-19 vaccine, almost 53% of the respondents were apprehensive (with women being more cautious than men). However, the recent survey saw a decline in this apprehension after the Government launched the inoculation drive, with 61% of Indians fine with being administered either Covishied, Covaxin, or both. 23% are still not willing to take either of the vaccines and the remaining 16% are unaware of these vaccines.
In terms of preference, 31% of Indians prefer taking Covishied while 18% would go with Covaxin, the remaining 51% would be fine with either.
Speaking about the study, Vishal Gondal, Founder & CEO of GOQii said, ‘’The GOQii India Fit report sought to understand how the citizens of India felt towards the initiatives taken by the government and the vaccines launched by organizations to curb the pandemic. We, at GOQii commend the efforts of the government to help the nation see through these difficult times. During the last year, there has been a renewed focus on boosting immunity and staying healthy. One important lesson that we can all learn from this pandemic is that preventive healthcare is the only way forward.”
Due to the lockdown this year, Indians were forced to limit their time spent outside for physical activity such as walking due to restrictions enforced by the government on public spaces and gyms in order to maintain social distancing. This led to a drastic drop in the average steps logged by Indians starting from late March when the lockdown was first announced. In 2020, the average steps were 66% of 2019 values.
However, the figure does not necessarily indicate that Indians were more inactive this year as they may still be engaging in other physical activities like working out at home.
During the lockdown period, many people continued their exercise, yoga, workout, or any other form of physical activity from their home. Almost 19% of people who used to go to the gym or any other fitness centers mentioned that they stopped doing any physical activity including their workout. More than 50% of respondents said that they started working out on their own in their homes. This is a positive sign that a majority of the population is motivated to perform some physical activity on their own. A significant section of people said that they used to watch online training and workout videos on youtube, google, Instagram, and another gym/fitness center-specific applications/websites and then performed their workout at home.
In conclusion, while the COVID-19 inoculation drive is in full swing, Indians have gradually begun easing back into their routines and socializing. The survey findings revealed that eating out at restaurants (27.10%), attending a family function, birthdays (25.95%), and attending weddings (19.54%) are among the top 3 activities that Indians did in the last three months. On the contrary, going to movies (2.42%) was the least sought activity by the respondents. Restaurants are back to operating at almost full capacity and business is at 70% of pre-COVID-19 levels as per major aggregators. India has fought a great fight to curb its caseloads as compared to a lot of other countries and is on the path to recovery.
To know more download the report from www.indiafit.org
