Little is known about how people’s beliefs concerning the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) influence their behavior. To shed light on this, we conduct an online experiment (\(n = 3,610\)) with US and UK residents. Participants are randomly allocated to a control group or to one of two treatment groups. The treatment groups are shown upper- or lower-bound expert estimates of the infectiousness of the virus. We present three main empirical findings. First, individuals dramatically overestimate the dangerousness and infectiousness of COVID-19 relative to expert opinion. Second, providing people with expert information partially corrects their beliefs about the virus. Third, the more infectious people believe that COVID-19 is, the less willing they are to take protective measures, a finding we dub the “fatalism effect”. We develop a formal model that can explain the fatalism effect and discuss its implications for optimal policy during the pandemic.

人们对 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 的信念如何影响他们的行为知之甚少。为了阐明这一点，我们进行了一个在线实验 ( \(n = 3,610\)) 与美国和英国居民。参与者被随机分配到一个对照组或两个治疗组之一。治疗组显示了病毒传染性的专家估计的上限或下限。我们提出了三个主要的实证结果。首先，相对于专家意见，个人大大高估了 COVID-19 的危险性和传染性。其次，向人们提供专家信息部分纠正了他们对病毒的看法。第三，人们认为 COVID-19 的传染性越强，他们就越不愿意采取保护措施，这一发现我们称之为“宿命论效应”。我们开发了一个可以解释宿命论效应的正式模型，并讨论其对大流行期间最佳政策的影响。