In the year of 2020, countries from around the world were in total lockdown to prevent the speared of Covid-19 that threaten the lives of people. Coronavirus or Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (World Health Organization, 2020). People infected with Covid-19 experience extreme or moderate respiratory illness accompanied with fever, fatigue, loss of taste or smell, cough and muscle or body aches (Centers for Disease Control, 2021).
Infected people vary in the severeness of the disease that can be risky for some categories of people. Specifically, older people are in high risk especially if they also have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer (Hollimon, 2020). However, anyone at every age can be infected or die, thus the disease was taken under control and considered as the pandemic.
This virus led to the pandemic that affected not only public health but also other parts of human existence, such as economy, education, and art. The scope of the disease and its effects made me interested in the topic of Covid-19 Moreover, I also took the topic because this is the first pandemic that is occurring in the contemporary world, showing limitations of the current public health systems. By choosing the Covid-19, I can understand more the disease, its effects on people and the methods of overcoming it.
The basic plan to address the threat initially was to restrict travelling inside and outside of countries, prohibit mass gatherings and place the countries in the total lockdown. Additionally, people should follow rules and regulations provided by their public health systems, otherwise they were panelized. However, not all people were ready to give up their past lifestyle and continued their gatherings, causing danger to the public health (Adane et al., 2021).
As such, there is a need to an effective information campaign that can convince people about the threat of the virus. I think that combining information campaign with the existing measure effective way to prevent the disease from infecting more people. Along with the lockdown and travel restrictions, many countries have vaccination campaigns to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Vaccination is a solution to the pandemic as it allows immune system to fight against the virus. First vaccines are found to be effective in its mission and are applying by the government of developed counties (Office of the Commissioner, 2021). As such, the issue of virus can be tackled in the nearest future.
When implementing measures against Covid-19, it is critical to consider misleading information about the virus and the pandemic. With the spread of the virus, people also start to spread disinformation about the disease, searching for conspiracy theories about why the Covid-19 came and who needed it. Therefore, governments should provide special committee or assign additional tasks to the existing task forces to monitor if people have such spread of disinformation.
Moreover, conspiracy theories are also related to vaccination, thus public health of countries should pay more attention on how people perceive vaccines and how to make them believe in the need of vaccination. It seen that to implement preventive measures of Covid-19, there is an extremely significant need for the work of public relations as people are scared and need support from the governmental officials. Therefore, the authorities should work in cooperation with public health and people to end the pandemic and stop the virus.
References
Adane, D., Yeshaneh, A., Wassihun, B., & Gasheneit, A. (2021). Level of Community Readiness for the Prevention of COVID-19 Pandemic and Associated Factors Among Residents of Awi Zone, Ethiopia: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, Volume 14, 1509–1524. Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) – Symptoms. Web.
Coronavirus. (2020). World Health Organization. Web.
Hollimon, N. (2020). Symptoms of Coronavirus. WebMD. Web.
Office of the Commissioner. (2021). FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Web.