Covid-19 and community’s risk awareness: are we really ready to contain this pandemic?

Background: The covid-19 is a newly emergent infectious disease. The currently prevalent pandemic situation arising from this disease necessitates that everyone be cognizant about its dynamics &methods of its prevention. The engagement in preventive behaviors against this virus plays a crucial role in protecting people from contracting the disease. Objective: To seek level of awareness regarding preventive measure for Covid-19 & its association to various socio-demographic characteristics of study population. Methods: Setting: Community residing in Qasimabad Hyderabad, Pakistan. Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study Duration: Three months i.e. from March, 2020 to May 2020 Sample Size & Sampling Technique: The research was conducted on 735residents of Qasimabad, Hyderabad selected through convenience sampling. Data Collection & Analysis: Data collected on performed questionnaire & analyzed in SPSS version 22.0 by computing proportions, means ±s.d and by applying Chi-square test of significance. Results: Out of 735 participant 92.1% were male, 51.7% participants’ age was between 21 to 30 years and most of participants i.e. 49.7% were having undergraduate level education. Almost all i.e. 100% had heard about the corona virus. 52% participant said that this disease is a fetal disease, the 94.7% population had knowledge about the sign and symptoms of virus. Most of participant i.e. 95.5% were scared from the deadly virus. We found more strong association between age & adoption of preventive measures against covid-19 pandemic e.g. practice of frequent hand washing (p< 0.01), practice of using face mask in public places(p= 0.03); social distance was found as the most neglected preventive strategy for covid-19; it was found in our study that it was not associated to age (p=0.18), gender (p=0.13) or educational status (p=0.24). Conclusion: Preventive measures play a vital role in controlling a pandemic. The community is well aware & practicing all preventive measures but still there are few gaps like practicing social distancing which need to be improved in study population.