Behavioral changes can be Engineered after all – as a Package Deal in the Wake of COVID-19

Strange things are happening as an aftermath of the contemporary Corona crisis. There is a need to analyse these to understand the intricacies involved with respect to human behaviour as well as the governance. General public, health professionals, political leaders as well as administrative authorities, all have shown some or other changes in their routine working or living style while handling the COVID 19 situation. Response of different sections of society has also been different.

It is often said that behavioural changes are difficult to bring about. But people did significantly change since January 2020 in the wake of corona scare and they did it very fast. The established ‘norms’ were transcended. Many of these ‘deviations from the normal’ among the stakeholders were witnessed for the first time, because of Corona situation. These have been enlisted below, though the tally is not exhaustive. It is just indicative of the actual situation.

To conclude, various domains have been affected due to Corona crisis, with significant changes, e.g., Professional and office work, family life, eating habits, social life, shopping, markets, industrial sector, entertainment, reading habits, street vending etc.

Another thing which became clear in 2020 in crisis like Corona, generic, age old preventive measures (which have been a part of the routines established in our culture) seem to be the only way out. Back to the basics appears to be the clarion call. For example, generic social distancing measures like use of ‘Namaste’ instead of westernized ‘hand shake’. This is because, no specific measures against Corona are available (vaccines and medications are still a far cry). This is likely to be true for any virus based pandemic, even in future. Again, this is particularly true for the infections which spread through respiratory route, where person to person spread is very fast.

Widespread blame games have also been witnessed during Corona crisis. Frequent intra- and inter departmental fights / debates within and outside hospital/medical colleges have also been there. Interstate differences in the skills and attitude of administrators in handling the Corona crisis also became apparent. Some have handled it well, while others committed mistakes. Impact of shutdowns is also being hotly debated. Contrary opinions are being expressed. On one hand, some countries have been quoted to have realized that delay in (or lack of) imposition of shutdowns was a blunder; on the other hand, many experts are criticizing their own country for ‘draconian lockdown’ [1].

All said and done, one thing that has dominantly emerged in this crisis is that the self-reliance concept and capacity of villages has been realized by many, while exposing the ever-increasing dependence of urbanites (on maidservants, essential service providers, departmental stores and street vendors etc.). Importance of neighbourhood provision stores also dawned upon people.

Lastly, about behavioural change efforts, we can say that, ‘You can tell people to change; they may or may not change. You force people to change, they may concede and comply. But, it remains to be seen as to when will the reverting back to original lifestyle may happen. We have to wait to witness, ‘Till what time these changes will be sustained?’ We will come to analyse (and realize), what are the temporary changes and what are relatively permanent.

Also, the author is of the opinion that the present Corona crisis is more of a management and administration issue, rather than just exclusively being an epidemiological conundrum to be solved. Public Health Professionals need to realize that political compulsions are an integral part of decision making for such a crisis. They have to understand that once the Epidemic Disease Act and Disaster Management Act come into force effectively, the bureaucracy has to be proactive.

Public health professionals have to and should play an active as well as supportive role constructively in any pandemic situation. Before blaming the central government, they should do a self-check whether they could convince their institutional administration to give them their due place in the scheme of things. Did they criticize their own Chief Executive officer for not giving due importance to them?

Reference

1. Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) & Indian Association of Epidemiologists.2nd Joint Statement on CoVID-19 Pandemic in India – Public Health Approach for COVID19 Control 25th May 2020 [Google Scholar]