COVID Rerun: Vaccines Making People More Prone To Risky Behaviour?

Bhubaneswar: Has the perception of safety brought about by the COVID-19 vaccination increased risky behaviour by people?

Experts believe that this could be the reason why an increasing number of people, including doctors, are testing COVID-19 positive even after taking both doses of vaccines.

This is called the ‘Peltzman Effect’, which states that people are more likely to indulge in risky behaviour when security measures have been mandated.

This was postulated by Sam Peltzman, an economist at the University of Chicago, in 1975.

Peltzman argued that mandating the use of seatbelts in automobiles led to more accidents. It implies that safety perception increases risk appetite. In other terms, people become more careful when they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected, according to his theory.

Similarly, in the case of Covid-19, vaccines are giving a sense of security, leading to more risky behaviour that is low adherence to preventive measures such as mask usage, social distancing and hand sanitisation.

Also Read: COVID-19 In Odisha: Vaccine Can Prevent Complication, Not Infection: Health Director

While it is a known fact that vaccines neither give immediate protection or full protection (against infection as against death), the sense of security unfortunately starts much earlier, even before the actual injection: people wear masks with less caution, do not maintain distance as soon as they reach vaccination centres.

The increase in the number of people being inoculated gives rise to a “misplaced sense of security in ‘herd immunity’ long before widespread immunity is truly present,” said doctors from New York University’s Langone Health in a comprehensive review of the Peltzman Effect, published in the ACP Journals on March 2, news agency IANS reported.

As a result “…the very optimism that is necessary to encourage widespread acceptance of the vaccine will undoubtedly contribute to the overconfidence” and lead people to forgo the preventive measures.

“Consciously or not, even those who have not received a Covid-19 vaccine may forgo masks and social distancing if they know that others are receiving the vaccine,” the doctors added.

Also Read: Vaccines No Guarantee Against COVID-19, But Save Serious Hospitalization & Deaths