Tag : Potential

    COVID Testing Programmes Have Potential To Increase Risky Behaviour: Study

    COVID Testing Programmes
    Inam Ansari
    November10/ 2022

    Washington: Frequent, mandatory surveillance testing was one of the techniques used in some jurisdictions to try to control COVID-19, but new research suggests that such testing may have the unintended consequence of empowering riskier behaviour in those who participate. Based on a false sense of security, students who participated in frequent COVID-19 testing at two universities engaged in more behavior known to increase the risk of spreading the virus than they might have otherwise, according to results of surveys led by University of Wyoming economists. "Recent research provides some evidence that people increase risky behavior in response to facemask wearing and vaccines, but this is the first study to examine the behavioral responses to mandatory testing," wrote researchers Chian Jones Ritten, Linda Thunstrom and Todd Cherry, of UW, and J.D. Wulfhorst, of the University of Idaho. "Overall, (our) results suggest that students perceived that the mandatory testing policy decreased their risk of contracting COVID-19, and that this perception led to higher participation in COVID-risky events." The research findings were published Friday in PNAS Nexus, the open access sister journal of the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During the fall 2020 semester, UW required all on-campus undergraduate students to be tested for COVID twice weekly, while the University of Idaho tested a small random sample of students weekly. Both universities required masks for all indoor events on campus. The researchers surveyed students at both universities and found that, in both cases, respondents who were tested more frequently perceived that they were at a reduced risk of contracting the virus. Those individuals also more fr ...

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