According to the study, led in part by scientists at University of Utah Health, wanting to feel normal and exercise personal freedom were among some of the reasons people were less truthful when asked during a survey about their situation during the pandemic. Other reasons included not thinking the virus was real or that it was no big deal, following the advice of a celebrity or other public figure, not feeling sick, feeling it wasn’t anyone else’s business and not being able to miss work.

“COVID-19 safety measures can certainly be burdensome, but they work,” said Andrea Gurkmankin Levy, a professor of social sciences at Middlesex Community College in Connecticut and co-leader of the study.

“When people are dishonest about their COVID-19 status or what precautions they are taking, it can increase the spread of disease in their community,” Levy said. “For some people, particularly before we had COVID vaccines, that can mean death.”

The study was published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, published Monday.

Angela Fagerlin, senior author of the study and chair of the department of population health sciences at U of U health, said the dishonesty raises concerns about how reluctance to report one’s health status and cooperation to preventive measures, such as social distancing, wearing a mask and isolating when sick, could potentially lengthen the current pandemic or promote the spread of other infectious diseases in the future.

Fagerlin said after noticing several media stories about people being dishonest about their vaccination status, the researchers decided to assess how truthful people across the nation were being about a COVID-19 diagnosis and compliance with preventive measures.

Screening questions were divided into three parts: one-third who had had the virus, one-third who hadn’t had the virus and were vaccinated and one-third who had not had the virus and were unvaccinated.

Forty-two percent of respondents reported they had failed to follow preventive guidelines or had misrepresented their COVID-19 status. They also reported breaking quarantine rules, saying they weren’t vaccinated when they were, telling someone they were vaccinated when they weren’t, not admitting they might have had or knew they had the virus when entering a doctor’s office, and telling someone they were with, or were about to see, that they were making more precautions than they actually were.

“Some individuals may think if they fib about their COVID-19 status once or twice, it’s not a big deal,” Fagerlin said. “But if, as our study suggests, nearly half of us are doing it, that’s a significant problem that contributes to prolonging the pandemic.”

Alistair Thorpe, co-first author and post-doctoral researcher in the department of population health sciences at U of U Health, said the study goes a long way toward showing what concerns people have about the public health measures implemented in response to the pandemic and how likely they are to be honest in the face of a global crisis.

“Knowing that will help us better prepare for the next wave of worldwide illness,” Thorpe said.