The Impact of COVID-19 Religious Gathering Restrictions

Covid Restrictions on Religious Gatherings

Intending to stop the spread of Covid-19, governments placed a ban on religious gatherings and online religious activities. Churches, mosques, and temples nationwide were prohibited from holding weekly services in person. Some countries issued a total ban while others placed limits on the number of devotees allowed to gather at religious ceremonies.

Due to covid rules on gatherings, religious institutes resorted to using other means to reach out to their believers. Most began to live stream or broadcast online. This is being done through various social media platforms such as Facebook, Zoom, and many other online applications. Real Research would like to know the public perception of this change in streaming religious ceremonies.

Highlights

• The majority believe that religion is highly necessary for mankind.
• 34% of the respondents were religious pre-pandemic. After the pandemic, it went down to 63.13%.
• Over 52% believe that religious activities are very important in their life.
• Almost 52% think religion is extremely influential in society.

From a total of 350,000 respondents, the majority (51.60%) believe that religion is highly necessary for mankind. Meanwhile, 25.45% think it is somewhat necessary. 12.99% believe it is somewhat unnecessary and 9.96% think it is completely unnecessary.

When asked if the respondents are religious, 86.34% said they were more religious pre-pandemic. However, after the pandemic, it went down to 63.13% which means that the pandemic had an impact on people’s faith. For some people, it seems like attending religious gatherings during the pandemic is connected to their unwavering faith.

This is relevant to when respondents were asked how important are religious activities in their life. Over 52% believe that religious activities are very important in their life and 23.46% agree that it is somewhat important. Only 11.60% of respondents think these activities are not important at all.

On another note, pre-pandemic non-religious people only had 13.66% response based on this survey. After a year has passed, it has increased to 36.87% which means that people feel like they are not religious anymore because they cannot attend and participate in any religious gatherings.

Furthermore, respondents were asked which religion they belong to. Most of the respondents belong to the Muslim community (30.54%). Then there are other religions such as Hinduism (23.80%), Protestant (21.48%), Catholic (12.59%), Buddhism (3.83%), and 4.26% belong to other religions.

Compared to a Year Ago, People Seem More Religious Now

Compared to a year ago, respondents were asked how often they participate in religious activities nowadays. The majority said that they participate in religious activities more often. 24.26% participate less often now, and only 13.50% participate in religious activities as often as before.

While some others consider themselves not religious, the significance of that 13.50% who responded they participate as often as before means that online religious activities are a better option for them. Looking at the bright side, it looks like these few individuals have strengthened their faith during the pandemic and made them attend religious activities more often.

Religion is indeed an influential factor in society. When asked how influential it is from their perspective, almost 52% think religion is extremely influential in society. 30.05% believe it is somewhat influential. Only 10.65% of the respondents think it is not that influential while 8.22% think it is not influential at all.

Lastly, this survey aimed to know what people think religious communities should do for society during these pandemic times. 44.57% responded that there is an importance of practicing ethical and moral deeds in this pandemic. Especially over the past year, several Asian hate crimes across the world have been shooting up.

27.87% believe that religious communities should volunteer to help the less fortunate. While 14.83% think that organizing social activities to protect human rights is also relevant to the spread of COVID-19.

Conclusion

It seems that, based on the data collected, COVID restrictions did in fact have an impact on people being religious. The majority of the respondents were religious pre-pandemic. However, because of the pandemic, the number of respondents who consider themselves religious went down by over 23%.

Moreover, the majority of respondents believe that religion is extremely influential in society. It seems that religious communities recognized the importance of practicing ethical and moral deeds during the pandemic. Of course, this is all in relevance to the rising spread of COVID-19.