COVID-19 Disbelief Saddles Healthcare Workers With Another Challenge

Clinicians are worried that skepticism about COVID-19 in local communities will harm their efforts to contain the pandemic, reports the Wall Street Journal . This adds to healthcare workers' already onerous load of their job's physical and mental stress. Such denial can include the beliefs that the virus is no more threatening than a routine cold, that face masks are ineffective at slowing the spread, and that the pandemic is a hoax. An Axios-Ipsos survey in September estimated that 36 percent of people believe fewer Americans are dying from COVID-19 than the number of deaths reported, up from 23 percent who believed that in May. Meanwhile, University of Southern California researchers polled 5,770 people in November, and found 4.6 percent agreed or strongly agreed that "wearing a mask is unnecessary because coronavirus is not a serious threat to people like me," versus roughly 5 percent in June. Many doctors fear the toll that widespread public skepticism and misinformation about the virus are taking on their ability to provide medical care, because individuals who fail to take precautions risk becoming sick and contributing to the spread.