The objective of this study is to identify the attitude of students to the COVID‑19 pandemic and the introduced anti-epidemic restrictions. The empirical basis was the data of a pilot survey of students conducted by the Institute of Agrarian Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2020 (N = 216). New empirical data have been obtained confirming, firstly, that among those who have had COVID‑19, as well as those whose relatives had coronavirus, there are significantly fewer COVID‑19 skeptics (8.3%), in contrast to those who did not get sick (14.8%). Secondly, the “recovered from COVID‑19 paradox” was identified, that is, on the one hand, those who have recovered, recognize the danger of the COVID‑19 pandemic, and on the other hand, not everyone strives to comply with restrictive and preventive measures. Thus, only 49.5% of students who have recovered from the illness and 61.1% of those who have not had the disease observe the social distance. Thirdly, the fear that loved ones will get sick worries the respondents to a greater extent than the risks of getting sick themselves.