TITLE:
A Vaccine Is Coming but Prevention Is Still up to Us
AUTHORS:
Hector Ortega
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Education, Denialism, Ignorance, Pandemic, SARS-CoV-2
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.11 No.1,
January
14,
2021
ABSTRACT: Despite having a better understanding of the COVID-19 disease, we are facing significant challenges regarding behaviors that enforce the lack of adherence to public health recommendations including the use of face masks and vaccine acceptability. Lessons learned from the 1918 flu pandemic, highlight the importance of wearing a face mask in conjunction with adherence to other public health recommendations. There are two key factors that influence how our communities are translating scientific evidence, denialism and ignorance. Sadly, a real consequence of this pandemic among a significant number of patients with COVID-19 disease is denial. As health care providers we need to take part in addressing these issues and educate our communities especially during this time where we see a second and larger uptake of COVID-19 cases. Fighting denialism and ignorance represents a significant challenge to our society and could have a substantial positive impact on helping with vaccine acceptability and other public health recommendations.