COVID isn’t done with us

But, psychologically, many people are engaging in risky behavior

because we really want COVID to be over…

We live in a postpandemic era of uncertainty and contradiction. Acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, is back, yet it never really went away.

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It’s hard both to avoid COVID, many people contend, and to lead a normal life. The latest wave so far is mild, notwithstanding recent reports of extreme fatigue. Scientists have voiced concerns about potential long-term cognitive decline in some severe cases, but most vaccinated people recover. Still, scientists say it’s too early to know about any long-term effects of COVID.

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The psychologist Paul Slovic said we evaluate risk based on three main factors. Firstly, we rely on our emotions rather than the facts (something he calls “affect heuristic”). Secondly, we are less tolerant of risks that are perceived as dreadful and unknown (“psychometric paradigm theory”). Thirdly, we become desensitized to catastrophic events and unable to appreciate loss (“psychophysical numbing”).

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these three theories influence how we cope with COVID. “Early in the pandemic, the ‘dread factor’ and ‘unknown factor’ meant we all felt it was very risky,” he said. “But we began to see that the people who were most affected were older with comorbidities. The dread factor is way down because of successful vaccinations. We certainly feel that the unknowable factor is down, but with new variants there is potentially something to worry about.”

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“COVID deaths are actually worse now than when we were all freaking out about it in the first week of March 2020, but we’re habituated to it, so we tolerate the risk in a different way. It’s not scary to us anymore,” said Annie Duke, a former professional poker player and author of books about cognitive science and decision making.