Indians fail to take COVID-19 pandemic seriously due to misinformation: Survey

Team Udayavani, Mar 21, 2020, 12:27 PM IST

Covid-19 has created chaos all over the world and health officials and experts are trying their best to limit the spread. In India, however, the next two weeks are said to be crucial and the government is undertaking various measures to tackle the virus.

India has conducted more than 14,000 COVID-19 tests so far, according to the World Health Organization, which says that the “country is responding with urgency as well as transparency.”

But many in the country are still failing to take the pandemic related precautions seriously.

Recently, a survey was conducted by Josh talks related to coronavirus, shockingly 65 percent of people believed that India would not be affected by Covid-19 because of the warm weather.

Two questions were framed in six regional languages to groups of 45,000 and 40,700 respondents each. The questions were aimed to judge urban Indians’ awareness and preparedness for coronavirus.

As many as 65.1 percent of the first group of respondents felt that the virus would not affect India as it is a warm country. Well, this myth has been prevailing since the news about the virus spread all over India. Many experts have been sceptical about warm weather slowing COVID-19 down. One needs to understand that COVID-19 is a completely new virus that scientists are only just beginning to understand.

Further, the survey also found that about 12.5 percent of the respondents believed coronavirus could only happen to people above the age of 60. This also is not true, people belonging to any age group are vulnerable to the virus.

It is also found that 6.1 percent of the respondents thought eating eggs or chicken made people more vulnerable to COVID-19 and 5.7 percent thought that the disease could be cured by consuming cow urine or garlic.

However, the question of the survey, which dealt with the preparedness of people to avoid getting infected by coronavirus got better responses. About 76 percent of people from across India said that they maintained proper self-hygiene and ensured a clean environment, avoided crowded places and used a face mask while travelling. They also said that they would seek a doctor in case of suffering from a cough or displaying any of the symptoms for over five days.

There are many such myths that are currently prevailing amid coronavirus fear. While a few say that consuming amla (Indian gooseberry) will prevent coronavirus, others say exposing yourself to sunlight can kill the virus. Well, none of these have scientific bases.

India now is at a crucial stage as number of positive cases of coronavirus in India are increasing. Hence, it is necessary to avoid myths and follow precautions to fight coronavirus.