FACTORS AFFECTING THE INTENTION OF STRENGTHEN PROTECTIONS AGAINST COVID-19 BASED ON SEWAGE MONITORING INFORMATION – A SURVEY TWO YEARS AFTER ITS PANDEMIC

Abstract

 This study investigated the individual implementation and intention of strengthening protection against COVID-19 during the period when the protection was requested by the government based on a questionnaire suvey, clarifying the factors that affected them. The result showed most of respondents did not strengthen the protection or did it at a low level even during that period. This was possibly attributed to the fact that 2 years had passed since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.

 Our survey also found the respondents perceived the information that the number of infections in the city was expected to increase to 1,000 over the next week as a serious warning, influencing their intentions to strengthen the protection. Among the users of a website that provides such information based on virus concentration in municipal wastewater, those who had higher perception about their risk of infection, had greater insecurity about their economic future, or were more altruistic felt stronger aversion to the lack of others’ protections, and consequently increased their intentions to strongten the protection. And the present implementation of protection among the users did not affect their intentions to strongthen the protection significanly. This psychological structure to increase the intention to strongthen the protection for the users was different from those for the non-users.