The public “underestimated” the risks of contracting Covid-19 when meeting people indoors, compared to experts in public health and virology, new research has found.

The study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found when rating factors that influenced Covid-19 risks, experts were more than twice as likely to mention whether an interaction took place indoors or outdoors, compared to members of the public.

The recently published ESRI research compared 800 people’s responses to a survey on Covid-19 risks, with responses from 56 experts in public health or virology.

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When weighing up Covid-19 risks, members of the public and experts broadly agreed when it came to considering whether social distancing was possible, if masks were worn and the number of people at a gathering.

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The experts placed significantly more weight than the public on whether an encounter was indoors or outdoors when assessing the risk of Covid-19 transmission, the research found.

Experts were also three times more likely to list the duration of an encounter as something they considered as contributing to the risk of contracting the disease.

The research, supported by the Department of Health, was conducted in June 2020. At the time restrictions from the first lockdown had begun to be eased and people could travel within their own county.

The public ranked the risk of not wearing a seatbelt in a car as similar to meeting people in a large group during the pandemic, whereas experts said not wearing a seatbelt was riskier.

The researchers said experts perceived “substantially greater risk” of Covid-19 from being with people indoors and spending long periods with others, compared to the general public.

The experts also placed more weight on the increased risk of transmission of the virus when people were exposed to “multiple simultaneous risk factors”.

“Relative to medical experts, the public are likely to underestimate the benefits of interacting outdoors rather than indoors and focus more on how many people they come close to,” the research said.

The ESRI paper concluded that communication to the public highlighting the importance of outdoor versus indoor encounters, as well as indoor ventilation, seemed “sensible”.