Take Responsibility of Your Health and Others Using Your New Year’s Resolution

By Benjamin Pulle Niriwa, 02.08.2020, Updated on 08.01.2022

SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19; in early 2020 was a stranger! It has become our family member, co-tenant, co-worker, and a very promiscuous close friend in our daily lives; whether one believes it or not (Tinkorang, 2020). Since the beginning of this pandemic some people have been brainwashed to have a false believe that it does not exist (Beer, 2021; Staff., 2020; Tinkorang, 2020). Though it has killed many people and had hospitalized many, there are still some people who do not believe its existence (Banerjee, 2021; Ghanamma.com., 2021). The first step to taking preventive measures is to believe that SARS-CoV-2 is real and can infect anyone irrespective of ones status in life. This revelation is a problem promoting painful problems people go through in the pandemic, because it shows that most people are still not mentality prepared to take personal responsibilities against COVID-19.

Including your personal responsibility, resorting to resolving realistic health problems in your New Year’s Resolution would help you to always take responsibility of your health and that of others (Fig. A.). In this pandemic, the individual responsibilities that contribute to the “common good” (Albareda & Sison, 2020), is the observation of the COVID-19 prevention protocols by all and sundry. Every one of us is contributing to common good in the management or prevention of COVID-19 by promoting or practicing health prevention behaviors like using personal hygiene.

Examples of personal hygiene practices during this pandemic are the washing of hands under clean running before and after touching anything (Wong & Lee, 2019); the sanitizing of hands with 70% alcohol for the same reason (Owusu, 2020; Wong & Lee, 2019); the wearing of clean dried quality face masks that do not allow the nose/nostrils, mouth/lips, and chin to be contaminate or infected. The “social distancing” (Qian & Jiang, 2020) which is the best is also based on this personal hygiene principle where everyone ought to take responsibility in preventing spread of SARS-CoV-2 by practicing it. We ought to behave like this until COVID-19 is gone or is eradicated.

Anyone who has not yet made his/her New Year’s Resolution should think of what he/she can also do to help our common good in the COVID-19 prevention. We all have a role to play as the COVID-19 cases have started spreading again like bush fires! I want to be a bucket of water that quench part of this bush fire, also be a bucket of water to quench another part. It is said that: “Little drops of water make the mighty ocean” (Kbfus.org., 2019; Vijayaraghavan & Bureau, 2011) that can quench any bush fire! If you did not know what to do, just keep on observing all the COVID-19 prevention protocols every day. With that you are doing something big! Thank you for Reading! Please, share if you enjoy reading it.

Figure A: The Perfect Me Mentality Principle of Disease Prevention, COVID-19

 

References

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Kbfus.org. (2019). Little Drops of Water Make a Mighty Ocean: Supporting Science Excellence in Africa. Insights, Retrieved from https://kbfus.org/little-drops-of-water-make-a-mighty-ocean-supporting-science-excellence-in-africa/ on 08.01.2022 at 11:02PM.

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