Peltzman Effect and Covid Cases

Byline By-Ritika Bhatia

When the coronavirus vaccine was launched, India declared that they had won this battle, but surprisingly just after the launch of the vaccine the cases started to rise again and this time the graph was steep. The situation that was expected after getting vaccination was contradicted. We expected that the problem would be solved but it became worse,as the normalization process of daily life and back to routine utopia of masses teared down.

The question here arises that is it normal that just when the vaccine was launched that is in the middle of January 2021 from then only the graph started accelerating again. Isn’t it strange?

When the solution came the problem increased? People are having weird perceptions about this, fake news is taking the hike.Can this be explained? The answer is yes.

The phenomenon is called peltzman effect which was introduced by an American economist Sam Peltzman when he observed that after the US government made wearing seat belts, helmets and other safety measures mandatory in response to the increasing accidents, the accident rate was still not reduced even after issuing the regulatory guidelines.

Sam peltzman observed and studied the whole thing and came up with this phenomenon called peltzman effect. The explanation and theory given by him stated that after the regulatory guidelines the cars had more safety features due to which people were extra relaxed in their approach towards driving and the accident death rate increased among bikers and 2 wheelers. This meant that people did not take the necessary caution by trusting the technological safety tools provided in the cars.

The same thing can be applied here, when people started getting vaccinated they jubilantly got their photos clicked that they had their jab and thus in the back of their mind had stopped taking necessary precautions which were still to be taken after getting vaccinated. This is the most prominent possibility of the second wave of coronavirus as there are more than 4,00,000 cases coming everyday.

What is the solution?

Solution lies in the caller tune of everyone’s call.

Recall the quote ‘Dawai bhi Kadai bhi’

Get yourself vaccinated and take all the necessary precautions that are needed then only we can avoid the 3rd wave of coronavirus.