COVID-19 risk-taking is going up as people become more desensitized to pandemic life - Study Finds

Researchers from the University of California-Davis say society is becoming desensitized to the health crisis, especially when it comes to following pandemic-era safety measures.

In the spring of 2020, many people started to hoard essential supplies like toilet paper, panic-buying whatever items they could find, and generally reacting with extreme anxiety on social media.

Study authors looked at the effect of early fear-based health messages in the news.

They found that such reporting motivated many people to change their behavior to help curb COVID’s spread.

However, researchers also find over-exposure to the constant stream of fear-based reporting is desensitizing people to the message.

Using computer programs to analyze the language people are using on Twitter, researchers measured the anxiety levels the public has been displaying throughout the crisis.

The results show that as the months go on, the anxiety in Twitter reaction to new coronavirus news simply isn’t there.

“If another health crisis occurred today, or COVID-19 takes another turn for the worse, it is essential for public health officials to consider that they are communicating to a desensitized public.