Perceived vulnerability to COVID-19 infection from event attendance: Results from Louisiana, USA, two weeks preceding the national emergency declaration

Ran Li; Bingchen Yang; Jerrod Penn; Bailey Houghtaling; Juan Chen; Witoon Prinyawiwatkul; Brian Roe; Danyi Qi

official announcements were made regarding the cancellations of any on-campus activities 1 1 0 before the end of our last study session (2: 00 PM March 12 th ) [9] . At 4:00 PM on March 12 th , on-campus classes starting from the week of March 16 th [10] , and then announced the cancellation of non-class activities involving 30 people or more immediately at 11:30 AM on 1 1 4 March 13, 2020 [11] . For reference, a national emergency was declared in response to COVID- 1 1 5 19 the afternoon of March 13, 2020 [12] . The sample includes the 356 participants enrolled from March 3 through March 12, 2020. Individuals were recruited via pre-existing email recruitment lists, flyers circulated on campus, 1 1 9 advertising announcements on classes, and advertisements in university locations. Inclusion Results are analyzed in Stata (version 16). The focal variables relating to COVID-19 1 2 3 were captured using a 5-point Likert scale. When more convenient for exposition or analysis, 1 2 4 these responses are simplified into binary variables (very or moderately likely/concerned = 1; all 1 2 5 other responses = 0). We also define the variable National, Not Local to equal one when 1 2 6 participants think a national crisis is very or moderately likely but are neither very nor 1 2 7 moderately concerned about contracting the virus by attending campus events. Personal 1 2 8 characteristics included in the analyses include sex, age, student status (=1 if enrolled in 1 2 9 . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.