ULM Expert Team: Immersing Awareness Of Obedience To Prokes In The Community Key To Handling COVID-19

Officers took action on a resident at the Antasari Sentra Market, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan who did not wear a mask. (Photo: ANTARA/Word)

BANJARMASIN- Community internal awareness is the key to handling the pandemic. In addition, a persuasive and humanist approach must be the axis of every strategy and policy implementation during emergency PPKM. This opinion emerged from the Expert Team for the Acceleration of Handling COVID-19 at Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM), Banjarmasin.

"The main estuary of the current problem is the ineffectiveness of various policies to handle the pandemic because there has not been a change in people's behavior," said Head of the Expert Team for the Acceleration of Handling COVID-19 at Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM) Dr H Iwan Aflanie, dr., M.Kes, Sp. F in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Saturday, July 10.

Iwan assessed that the longer the pandemic lasted, it seemed that people tended to be increasingly neglectful in implementing health protocols. Whereas health care discipline is the main requirement to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19 from one person to another.

According to him, changing people's behavior from being accommodating to the spread of COVID-19 to being more restrictive is not enough just with a normative approach or simply imposing sanctions.

However, it must be able to encourage the internalization of each individual's self-awareness of the importance of their involvement in handling the pandemic.

For example, by wearing masks, maintaining distance, washing hands and maintaining cleanliness, avoiding crowds, reducing activities outside the home, and participating in vaccinations, residents not only protect themselves but also their families, the environment and society.

The moral message of active involvement in individual health protocols will help millions of people from the risk of getting sick with COVID-19 and prevent thousands of people from dying from infection.

Then if everyone obeys the prokes, it helps the doctors and nurses as well as the various personnel involved in the hospital. If they care about implementing the prokes, the pandemic will be controlled quickly, the economy will recover quickly, so that more jobs will be opened, schools can be opened again, people can gather and stay in touch directly.

"It is this education that we must immerse into the subconscious mind of the community," said the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, ULM.

For this reason, Iwan reminded repressive measures in enforcing the rules, for example, when the Emergency PPKM was not effective in raising public awareness.

He gave an example of taking action against food stalls or street food stalls by forcibly taking the furniture and even spraying it, this step only creates a feeling of antipathy from the residents towards the officers. In fact, residents must receive good socialization so that the message is why the Emergency PPKM is implemented.

The problem of residents in the form of loss of income must also be given a solution, both with government support and by mobilizing community collaboration to help those affected by the pandemic in terms of health, economy, and others.