There’s a famous saying that the more you think about something, the more likely it is to happen.
In Hindi, the loose translation could be “agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho toh poori kainath use tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai“. Seems like its applicability has extended to COVID-19 as well.
Could Believing In COVID Misinformation Be Lethal?
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), one’s chances of contracting the coronavirus are higher when one believes the misinformation about it.
The study was conducted on US-based residents. They were asked 13 true and false questions each like “some individuals who have COVID-19/the coronavirus do not show any symptoms” and “spraying chlorine on my body will protect me even if COVID-19/the coronavirus has already entered my system” among the others.
The questions were designed to evaluate the candidates’ faith in science, perception of the pandemic, and belief in conspiracy theories.
Four months after this survey, the participants were asked to join another survey in which they were asked if they contracted COVID or not. 348 participants had become the victim of the virus and researchers found that most of them were the ones who believed in COVID myths and hoaxes.
Read More: ResearchED: How COVID-19 Vaccine Shots Can Potentially Benefit Mental Health
Another conclusion was that those who believed in Trump and his policies and conspiracy theories, in general, had contracted COVID more than the others. It was found out that the ones with greater belief in conspiracy theories had less accurate knowledge about COVID, and thus were at greater risk of contracting it.
“Individuals with more accurate knowledge were far less likely to have contracted COVID-19,” said the study’s author Russell H. Fazio. He further added, “It would be fascinating to examine the consequences of correcting any misinformation that people had acquired regarding the virus. Whether changes inaccurate knowledge result in changes in the likelihood of contracting the virus is an important question that needs to be addressed.”
The findings of this study are in alignment with a similar kind of study conducted in The Netherlands. The finding of that study was also that the greater is one’s belief in conspiracy theories, the more likely one is to get COVID.
Misinformation is a pandemic in itself. It is imperative you try to save yourself from misinformation just as much as you try to save yourself from COVID.
Sources: India Times, Futurism, PsyPost
Image Sources: Google Images
Find The Blogger: @TinaGarg18
This post is tagged under: covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, misinformation pandemic, omicron, safety, vaccination, reverse psychology, contracting covid, covid myths, hoax, social distancing, belief in science, faith in government, corona, believing covid misinformation, trump
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