The effects of President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis on hoax beliefs and risk perceptions of the virus in the U.S.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been the worst infectious disease outbreak in the U.S. in over 100 years and was associated with the deaths of over 500,000 people in the U.S. within its first year alone. This public health challenge is additionally affected by public scepticism over the severity of the disease, or even its existence in many countries, including the U.S. Previous research has shown that this scepticism is politically skewed in the U.S., with conservatives more likely to downplay or deny the risks of the virus. Such polarisation has been led by elite cues, including the President of the U.S. at one point describing the virus as a ‘hoax’. However, the subsequent hospitalisation of President Trump with COVID-19 in October 2020 served as a high-profile exemplar of the reality and risks of the virus, and as such may have influenced opinions, particularly for U.S. conservatives. The current research draws on two studies, both of which serendipitously surveyed independent representative U.S. samples before and shortly after the announcement of Trump’s illness. In Study 1, measuring risk perceptions of the virus, we find that, controlling for sociodemographic factors, participants surveyed before and after the announcement did not differ in their risk perception regardless of political orientation. However, in Study 2, measuring belief that the virus is a hoax, we find that among those on the far right of the political spectrum, such a belief was lower for those surveyed after the announcement, suggesting that Trump’s hospitalisation may have changed the beliefs of those most receptive to the President’s earlier claims of the virus being a hoax.