Coronavirus Pandemic
A virologist and a medical laboratory scientist, Dr. Solomon Chollom, on Tuesday said with the easing of the lockdown, effective communication was salient in reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Chollom stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos.
He explained that effective communication had to do with making people understand why they needed to adhere and comply with the non-pharmacological (precautionary) measures against the virus.
He said that stakeholders’ meetings alone would not translate to strategic and effective information dissemination as most of the representatives might not relay the message effectively.
The virologist said that it was obvious from some peoples’ display of passive disposition toward the precautionary measures and the disbelief around the virus, that the message about the risk and consequence of the virus on lives and livelihood, was not yet clear to most people.
He said that it was imperative for the government to embark on community dialogue, door-to-door health campaigns to enlighten the people on the disease and to disabuse the fact that the virus was a hoax and did not exist.
He said that if this was effectively done, more people would adhere and comply with the health precautionary measures without being forced to comply as they would had a better understanding of the pandemic.
“Government needs to do more than policy generation and enforcement.
”Strategies to get people understand the situation must be reappraised and adopted to make people take up responsibility naturally without the use of force which only creates a fake sense of compliance upon sighting enforcement agents,” Chollom said.
He said that that non-adherence to the guidelines cut across social, educational, religious, and economic blocs.
He said these were clear feedback to the government that the communication and community engagement model in use was not very effective. (NAN)
– Jun. 23, 2020 @ 13:05 GMT |
Tags: Effective communication key to reducing spread of COVID-19 – Virologist
