The Working Paper Series seeks to disseminate original research in economics and finance. All papers have been anonymously refereed. By publishing these papers, the Banco de España aims to contribute to economic analysis and, in particular, to knowledge of the Spanish economy and its international environment.The opinions and analyses in the Working Paper Series are the responsibility of the authors and, therefore, do not necessarily coincide with those of the Banco de España or the Eurosystem.The Banco de España disseminates its main reports and most of its publications via the Internet at the following website: http://www.bde.es.Reproduction for educational and non-commercial purposes is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged.

This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB.

Awareness about the occurrence of viral infectious (or other) tail risks can influence their socioeconomic inter-temporal impacts. In this regard, a branch of the literature finds that personal experiences with significant shocks can have long-lasting effects on risk-taking attitudes and the perceived probability about the occurrence of extreme, negative shocks. In this paper, we proxy the level of societal experience (awareness) in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak by past exposure of a country to epidemics, and other catastrophic events. We show that in a large cross-section of more than 150 countries, more aware societies suffered a less intense impact of the COVID-19 disease, in terms of loss of lives and, to some extent, economic damage.