COVID‐19: Assessment of knowledge and awareness in Indian society

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Ashish Kumar Singh,Bharti Agrawal,Anukriti Sharma,Prayas Sharma
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2354

ACADEMIC PAPER

COVID-19: Assessment of knowledge and awareness in Indian

society

Ashish Kumar Singh

1

|Bharti Agrawal

2

|Anukriti Sharma

3

|Prayas Sharma

3

1

Department of Management Studies, Raj

Kumar Goel Institute of Technology,

Ghaziabad, India

2

Department of Computer Science, Shri

Vaishnav Institute of Management, Indore,

India

3

School of Business, University of Petroleum

and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

Correspondence

Prayas Sharma, School of Business, University

of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun,

India.

Email: prayassharma02@gmail.com

COVID-19, which was initiated regionally at Wuhan of China, has become a global

pandemic by infecting people of almost all the world. Human civilizations are facing

threat for their survival and livelihood. No country are getting any substantial relief

and solution from this pandemic rather to convince their citizens to make aware and

taking precaution by changing their living style. In view of this, this study attempted

to assess the awareness, threat, symptoms and its prevention among people of India

about the COVID-19. A total of 522 responses from all over India were received. The

respondents have adequate awareness for COVID-19 outbreak and its preventive

measures, out of total, 98% (513) answered that the virus spreads from one person

to another, 95% (494) answered that the disease is caused by a virus. Peoples under-

stand the importance of social distancing and other preventive measures prescribed

by the government with good attitude for coronavirus. Peoples are following trusted

sources for corona information, having confidence to defeat disease but showed

their concern for corona threat, are aware about the virus, its common symptoms

and prevention, govt. testing and medical facilities. Principal component analysis was

used to identify the latent dimensions regarding people's preventive measures and

was found that they are majorly adopting three methods, that is, lockdown, naturopa-

thy and social distancing. This study will help government and peoples to understand

and handle this coronavirus pandemic effectively and in prevention of COVID-19,

which is crucial for the awareness of society in coming time.

1|INTRODUCTION

COVID-19 started from one city of China in December 2019, but in a

short span of time, it covered almost all over the world

(WHO, 2020b). Nearly 216 countries of the whole world are strug-

gling for their civilization and livelihood against the coronavirus pan-

demic. On January 11, 2020, China declared first death of their

61 years old citizen due to COVID-19, who was exposed to the sea-

food market (WHO, 2020b), but now death reached exponentially to

357,736 on 29th May 2020 (WHO, 2020a).

On February 11, 2020, WHO announced this coronavirus dis-

ease as COVID-19 (WHO, 2020c) and pandemic on March

11, 2020, after reaching the virus infection to 114 countries across

the world.

COVID-19 and SARS coronavirus are similar and because it is

becoming a big threat to human civilization as consequences, online

awareness programs were initiated and conducted worldwide by

WHO (2020c).

Proper strategies and funds were set up by WHO globally to pro-

tect the countries with special focus to poor and weaker health infra-

structure developing countries. The aim was to reduce the virus

communication in society, dissemination of crucial information, pro-

viding proper healthcare and to minimize social and economical loss.

WHO also focused on establishing an easy and effective diagnostic

system to prevent infection (WHO 2020c).

To prevent the infection socially, the lockdown was imposed

globally, which resulted in the halt of all economic and social activity

in society. This led to cease global supply chains badly resulting in the

Received: 15 June 2020Revised: 26 July 2020Accepted: 30 July 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2354

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2354.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2354