Social Vaccine: Why do common people ignore the social distancing norms despite the fact that it is only remedy available to combat the Covid - 19 pandemic? There are reports of mass violations of social distancing norms for and wide which has distorted the basic objective of containing the disease.
Dr Manzoor Hussain Interesting question. We have seen economical, political, psychological, and even religious responses to the question. One reason would be lack of awareness of having wrong information about the disease. But, it also involves ideological reasons to a great extent. For instance, in authoritarian and collectivist societies, there was more compliance with public instructions. However, in libertarian and individualist societies, the emphasis on personal freedom is strong and one will not easily will to obey an instruction or request that is considered not justifiable enough. There may be many other reasons. It is a good question to do a sociological research on.
It's the human behaviour of believing what has been experienced by the self or close one. Covid 19 being an infection not having severe symptoms in more than 95 %people falsely assures the population in general that I am going to fine even if I get this infection.
They are not concerned about the cross infection they are transmitting to the vulnerable group like senior citizens, people with other ailments.
A similar analogy is people consuming tobacco despite seeing a warning of cancer on the packet as big as covering 90% of the packet.
Sad state
One study during the Covid-19 outbreak found that people in both the US and in the UK understood public health measures to contain the virus fairly well early on, says Pascal Geldsetzer, a researcher at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health. In a study he carried out between 23 February and 2 March, Geldsetzer used an online survey to ask 2,986 people in the US and 2,988 people in the UK about their views on and understanding of the new coronavirus. The majority of participants (93% in the US and 86% in the UK) knew which measures could prevent Covid-19 spreading: handwashing, avoiding close contact with people who are ill and avoiding touching your face. But "there is a difference between knowing what actions can reduce transmission of the virus and putting them into practice". This is the answerer for your question.
In my opinion it is the fault of those who provided an unclear communication to the population. This has led to considerable uncertainties and has favored the formulation of conspiracy and anti-scientific theories.
Because of their annoyance with life, I think that there is a Coronavirus pandemic and the requirements of life and work
The vast majority of people in developed countries are aware of the social distancing norms required to avoid infection. Many however make a wrong trade-off assessment between the trouble to abide by the norms and the risk associated with an infection. The risk does not appear to justify the trouble. Wrong assessment because we are gradually becoming more aware of the sequelae of a CoV-2 infection. There is high risk that the virus directly affects organs other than the lungs (well established: kidney, liver, pancreas, vascular system) and indirectly by its propensity to generate blood clots which may travel practically everywhere in the body, with consequences that only time will tell.
Some people do not know the ways of transmitting COVID-19, others do not take things seriously and this influences the spread of the virus. So we have to work on it, educating the population.
There are many reasons:
Such people are selfish and don't care about spreading disease to others.
Such people think that they cannot get infection. This is human psychology for most people.
Some people think that it is their democratic right not to follow social distancing and wear mark. They forget that democracy has certain responsibilities and limits.
This is a typical manifestation of animal instinct - selfishness, opportunism, survival of the fittest, might is right.
Follow the leader ...
and probably many more
Lack of awareness among people
Lack of ignorance as most of the people think that they don't get infection and believe that when death will come it will come only instead of taking prevention .
Moreover ,they even don't think about other people
Poverty and paucity of resources. People must interact for the social economic survival. And the other end of the spectrum is the yet to be specified proportion of the population which doesn't believe Covid is real.....
Human beings are naturally social beings. While it is easy to keep safe social distances with strangers, it is more challenging to do it among friends and family and many people are yet to get used to the new normal.
Among disadvantaged communities, survival for the fittest leads to scramble for scarce resources and people forget social distancing rules to satisfy their basic needs eg when food donations are being given.
I guess human nature is one of needing company to survive. But these are new normal times and people have to try and adjust life to this "neo-normal"
If you are not aware or ignorant perhaps you could be excused but for those who are fully aware and deliberately flout the regulations than there is no excuse and can expect to get infected and suffer the consequences.
I think it is the nature of common people which attract towards old habits Knowingly or unknowingly. Moreover, Covid-19 is considered as high-income group people disease so common people are taking it casually.
Because of IQ comparable to minus degrees as in arctic winter (not taking into account climate change).
That's human being, we learn more from experience. A man would behave if he gets infected and recovered, he will experience how bad it is, how danger his life was in. Otherwise people take it easy and think that their immunity system will stand against the virus.
In Nigeria, for instance, many people (including the political leaders themselves), do not believe in the reality of the coronavirus. I also do not believe in it's existence in Nigeria. It is an avenue to create fear and embezzle funds coming in as foreign aids and palliatives. Thus, social distancing will never be adequately observed, especially in poor and/or corrupt nations.
Dear Dr Manzoor Hussain .Human ignorance is a factor but surely it is not the only cause. Look at what's, most unfortunately, happening in India. Surely, there are other factors to account for!
There are people with traditional beliefs that it is hard to change. It requires more time!
Ignorance and stubbornness reign supreme in the world and the educational level is no exception to such behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These reports at the links below are examples of such self--destructive behavior (1-2).
1. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate
2. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/20/europe/czech-singer-death-deliberate-covid-infection-intl/index.html