When communication materials were released to educate the public on the prevention of COVID-19, one of the challenges I raised was the use of the term ‘Social Distancing’. Although healthcare and public health professionals could easily understand what this meant, I am of the opinion that ‘Physical Distancing’ would have been a more appropriate phrase if we wanted to achieve behaviour change in the shortest possible time. In general there is high awareness about COVID-19 across the population, but until people fully understand the preventive measures, practice of such will remain very low or inconsistent.
On this journey to find the stories on the street I noticed a bucket with a tap outside a small shop on Aborisade Street, Lawanson area in Lagos. I did not see any soap or hand sanitizer, so I decided to find out why the bucket tap was placed at the entrance of the shop. As I drew closer, I saw that it was a barber’s shop about 10feet wide and 15feet long with five young men inside, one of whom was getting a haircut.
As I ventured to get their attention, William came out to attend to me. I wanted to know why he had the bucket tap outside his shop and what the procedure was when a client came for a haircut. In summary, the bucket tap is for clients to wash their hands with soap before they enter his shop. I asked him for the soap since it was not outside, so he went in to get the container for soap and hand sanitizer. Guess what? I could barely see any soap in that container, what I saw was an overly diluted liquid soap that was almost exhausted. As for the hand sanitizer, it was finished.
I asked him why he was not adhering to the social distancing measure for prevention or wearing a face mask, he smiled and said, “All of us here are together, we work together here. It is only customers that come that have to wash their hands here before entering my shop.” William actually believes that only people outside his circle can bring COVID-19 to his shop. He doesn’t think he needs to use a face mask or maintain physical distancing as he provides his service to clients. This begs the question of how effective the communication strategies about COVID-19 have been.
Do everyday people understand that the preventive measures are to be practiced in totality? What I have seen is that people think once they have washed their hands, they do not need to practice physical distancing or wear a face mask. They believe wearing a face mask is enough to prevent them from contracting the virus and even when they wear a face mask, it is not done properly most of the time.
As I photographed on the street, most people who had the face mask had it hanging on their chin, not covering their nose or mouth.
I saw other shops with the bucket tap facility positioned strategically for customers to wash their hands as they came in to transact business, but the few I walked into did not insist I wash my hands before I entered. There was nobody monitoring the use of the washing facility, so how do they intend to ensure compliance and really prevent a virus infection?
We need the involvement of behavioral change communication experts as an integral part of the COVID-19 taskforce to ensure effective communication strategies are adopted for information dissemination. Edutainment should be adopted in producing information, education and communication materials. Anthill Studios under the leadership of Niyi Akinmolayan has started some work in this regard, by providing interesting age appropriate education on COVID-19 using animations targeting children. Some media houses have produced informational videos to educate their viewers but there is a lot more to be done.
Partial practice is as good as no practice. Our people must be made to understand the importance of practicing all prevention measures if we want to flatten the curve anytime soon.
