Essay on Amidst Fear and Anxiety: Dealing with COVID-19 Through Proper Communication

People all over the world are worried as the globe continues to experience the escalating unpredictable effects and advancement of the new pandemic, COVID-19. Nonetheless, virtually all aspects of life have come to a sudden grinding halt, including essential services like health, education, and transportation. Consequently, fear is inevitable, and a state of emotional anxiety due to lack of knowledge reigns. Thus during such times, proper communication from concerned sectors like the officials and medical experts is crucial, but they have failed.

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The governments and the different health agencies have grossly violated the principles of pandemic risk communication principles (Yu et al., 2020). The policies spell out the expected criteria to be followed during communication to the general public concerning the outbreak of a pandemic like the COVID-19. The rules include avoiding over reassurance, issuing appropriate instruction to the public, avoiding confusion or mistakes, acknowledging the fear of the people, and minding the current concerns before giving updates.

Several governments all over the world have continued to give out mixed information regarding the progress of the pandemic. For instance, the president of the United States, Mr. Donald Trump, issued information that directly contradicted the evidence presented by health experts and public health workers. The mixed messaging creates a nonconducive environment for public health workers to operate. This is mainly because the public is generally confused about which information to accept as valid.

Furthermore, health agencies have failed to give proper instructions to the people. For example, the center for disease control (CDC), has continued to express concern and empathy, while at the same time hinting out that there are some uncertainties (Ang, 2020). As a result, they appear to be careful about the information they are issuing to the public. Thus, mistrust is developed by the public, further complicating the situation.

The local health facilities in various countries around the globe have failed to state true capabilities. Most of the health facilities were unable to follow the crucial principle of information about evaluating the current concerns before issuing updates (Yu et al., 2020). As a result, most of the countries around the world ended up being overwhelmed by the pandemic. Nonetheless, these countries have significantly lied about their current situation as their citizens continue to suffer and register numerous new victims.

The concerned governments and health agencies could have done things differently. For instance, proper pandemic risk communication was to be integrated into the pandemic preparedness blueprint (Ang, 2020). This would have immensely helped in saving time and giving accurate information to the general public.

Nevertheless, establishing a capable multi-agency communication team, with the necessary partners and ministries would have significantly improved the communication process. The team is crucial in rapidly delivering accurate information to the targeted group of people. Moreover, such a group can dramatically aid in designing the message to efficiently meet the understanding capabilities of various groups of people within the public.

Conclusion

In conclusion, pandemic risk communication should provide proper information to allow concerned parties to make a relevant decision. However, as the world continues to witness the terrible effects of the COVID-19. It has also observed poor pandemic risk communication.

References

Ang, Y. Y. (2020). When COVID-19 meets centralized, personalized power. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0872-3

Yu, M., Li, Z., Yu, Z., He, J., & Zhou, J. (2020). Communication-related health crisis on social media: a case of COVID-19 outbreak. Current Issues in Tourism, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1752632