General public is very misinformed on cold (and flu) virus mortality risk to non-seniors and hospitalization rate for those infected.

Brookings.edu: How misinformation is distorting COVID policies and behaviors
December 22, 2020
Using monthly data from 35,000 U.S. adults who responded to the Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study, we document significant variation in the understanding of COVID-related facts and concomitant behaviors. ..

When asked to estimate the share of deaths by age group, the average American dramatically overestimates the share of COVID-19 deaths from people aged 24 and younger, putting it around 8%, when in fact it was 0.1% ...

The fact that COVID-19 poses a much higher mortality risk to the old than the young was the most clear feature of the virus from very early on; it is remarkable that many Americans remain misinformed about this basic factor...

In December, we asked, “What percentage of people who have been infected by the coronavirus needed to be hospitalized?”

The correct answer is not precisely known, but it is highly likely to be between 1% and 5% according to the best available estimates, and it is unlikely to be much higher or lower. We discuss the data and logic behind this conclusion in the appendix.

Less than one in five U.S. adults (18%) give a correct answer of between 1 and 5%. Many adults (35%) say that at least half of infected people need hospitalization. If that were true, the millions of resulting patients would have overwhelmed hospitals throughout the pandemic.

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to overestimate this harm. Forty-one percent of Democrats and 28% of Republicans answered that half or more of those infected by COVID-19 need to be hospitalized...

These errors in factual knowledge appear to have important real-world implications. Those who overestimate risks to young people or hold an exaggerated sense of risk upon infection are more likely to favor closing schools, restaurants, and other businesses...

Just over half of U.S adults say they would be willing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Gallup data, though the number appears to be increasing. When asked why they wouldn’t want the vaccine, concerns about a rushed timeline and safety account for roughly half of those unwilling to get it...

To isolate how exposure to discreet pieces of information may affect attitudes, we randomly assigned people to read short news-like segments, averaging 44 words each. These pieces of content were all accurate summaries of relevant data, advice, or the results of COVID-specific research, and they were chosen to be either reassuring or alarming with respect to the threat from the disease (see Appendix, Table 1 for full list)...

The results of this experiment show that people exposed to alarming news (about record-high cases or hospitalizations) were significantly less likely to support re-opening restaurants or bars for indoor services and significantly less likely to support re-opening schools (elementary or secondary) or universities to in-person learning.