Page 9 - IJPS-11-5

International Journal of
Population Studies Human behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Table 1. Projected deaths in the United States, if there were through airborne exposure and contact with the mucous
no behavioral changes membranes of the face.
Age Men Women Total Although not officially recognized by the World Health
<29 96,964 97,459 194,422 Organization until December 2022, SARS-CoV-2 spreads
30–39 56,067 54,418 110,486 mainly through small droplets in aerosol, rather than large
droplets. Infection typically requires exposure to about
40–49 110,651 112,465 223,116 100 viral particles. However, transmission could occur
50–59 306,722 321,563 628,286 with as few as three viral particles. Compounding this risk,
60–69 877,291 955,621 1,832,912 Bleicker et al. (2021) found that infected individuals can
70–79 1,353,535 1,579,124 2,932,659 release up to hundreds of millions of viral particles.
>80 1,220,292 1,171,481 2,391,773 Airborne transmission occurs through several means:
Total 4,021,522 4,292,131 8,313,653 (i) Breathing releases 50–5,000 droplets. Most of these
droplets are low velocity and fall to the ground
of countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, quickly. Fewer droplets are released through breathing
Australia, and New Zealand, there would have been through the nose.
700,000 fewer deaths in the US. In other words, roughly (ii) Sneezing produces approximately 30,000 droplets,
seven out of the 10 COVID-related deaths in the US would with droplets traveling at speeds up to 200 miles
have been prevented through rational behavior. This raises per hour. Infected individuals may release up to 200
the critical question: Why did the US have such terrible million viral particles in a single cough or sneeze.
outcomes? (iii) A toilet flush generates about 8,000 droplets if the
seat is left open. Infections have resulted from toilet
3. The role of the leader flushes.

All countries’ pandemic responses were shaped by their SARS-CoV-2 viral particles can also be transmitted
respective leaders. No country delegated that responsibility through surfaces. A study by Chatterjee et al. (2021)
to its public health agencies. A country’s leader established reported the persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus particles
practices and acted as a role model, thus influencing public on hard surfaces, as shown in Table 2.
behavior and determining COVID-19 outcomes. With the emergence of variants, SARS-CoV-2’s
The significance of leadership was starkly demonstrated infectiousness grew. The original Wuhan strain had an R of
0
by the 1991 Milgram experiment at Yale (Blass, 1991). 2.5, followed by Alpha at 3.0, Delta at 5.0, and the original
The experiment demonstrated the overwhelming power Omicron variant at 8.2. Since then, the transmissibility has
of authority and provided the psychological evidence continued to rise.
that people will blindly and obediently follow leaders. 5. Common settings for SARS-CoV-2
Remarkably, two-thirds of the participants in the transmission
experiment administered a potentially lethal shock to
another participant after s/he was allegedly unconscious Having established how infection happens, the next
simply because someone in a White coat told them to do so. question is where. According to Grabowski et al. (2020),
the primary settings for SARS-CoV-2 spread include
Adding to people’s inbred, lemming-like behaviors, the
threat, uncertainty, and urgency associated with a crisis households, within the community, which is fueled by
superspreaders, and interregional transmission networks.
like the pandemic magnify a leader’s power. This dynamic
helps explain why 4% of adult respondents said they A meta-analysis by Dean et al. (2020), which reviewed
drank or gargled diluted bleach after Trump’s ill-advised 54 relevant studies with 77,758 participants regarding
suggestion to drink bleach. household secondary transmission, reported that the
estimated household secondary attack rate was 16.6% (95%
4. People’s behavior confidence interval [CI]: 14.0–19.3%), which was higher
than the secondary attack rates for SARS-CoV-1 (7.5%;
4.1. COVID-19 infection
95% CI: 4.8–10.7%) and Middle East respiratory syndrome
SARS-CoV-2 infects the host by entering the body (MERS) coronavirus (4.7%; 95% CI: 0.9–10.7%).
through the mouth, nose, or eyes. The virus cannot enter Household secondary attack rates from symptomatic index
the body through the skin, open sores, or ingestion of cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2–22.1%) were higher than from
contaminated food. Thus, transmission primarily occurs asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI: 0–4.9%). Adult

Volume 11 Issue 5 (2025) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/IJPS025110040