Spoken metaphors such as “unstable situation” document a conceptual association between physical instability and difficult situations. Drawing on research in embodied cognition and conceptual metaphor, the present research examined whether people’s somatic experience can influence their attitudes toward the current COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesis is that inducing a sensorimotor state such as physical instability can activate the associated abstract concepts such as the feelings of instability during a public health crisis. Taken together the findings of conducted experiments indicate that seemingly irrelevant physical experiences can skew people’s opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic, exerting potential downstream effects on their actual behaviour.