….Says Oyo Plans Risk Communication Approach To Fight Apathy
Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Dr. Wasiu Olatubosun has expressed fear that despite unrelenting campaign to sensitize the people on safety regulations against the Covid-19 pandemic, many still went about without fear of contracting the virus.
Olatubosun stated this while answering questions on his experience during his self-isolation period at his office on Wednesday afternoon, saying the State’s Covid-19 Task Force toured over 600 communities in the State to sensitize people about the dangers of the virus and how to avoid contacting it.
He said the task force thereafter embarked upon community testing, which revealed that most people in the rural communities did not heed the warnings and have been infected already, as the results from communities showed.
“You would not believe that while I was on self-isolation at home, some people still came to my house on Sallah day to celebrate with me, they did not fear at all, I had to send emissary to them on phone with gifts and asked them to go home, it was that bad.
“We preached the dangers of Covid-19 at all nooks and crannies of the State, we toured 600 rural communities like the holy prophets did, but our people did not heed the warning in time, which led to the outburst of the disease in rural areas at a point, but thank God the curve has slowed and we now have insignificant numbers coming from the rural areas.”
Dr Olatubosun said the State government has perfected what he called risk communication approach to fight people’s apathy to the danger inherent in getting infected with Corona virus.
He said the approach would consider communicating major consequences of not following Covid-19 safety protocols, which he said will entail the use of visuals, voices and graphics to showcase testimonial cases of people that earlier showed apathy and later contracted the disease.
On how he survived the virus and psychological effects of the 56 days self-isolation, the Commissioner said despite that he was asymptomatic of the virus and endured six tests before being certified to be negative.
He opined that although the world has not come out with a vaccine against the virus, the standard World Health Organization (WHO)’s medical recommendation for treatment was abiding, but for Nigerians, supplementing the orthodox medicine with local herbs helped him a lot to recover.
“I took 25 bottles of black seed oil, a bowl of black seed, a lot of alligator pepper and bitter-cola as well as different brands of herbal concoctions which I drank at interval and used for steaming after my normal drugs, but the utmost is prayer to overcome the trauma.”
Olatubosun praised Governor Seyi Makinde as a worthy war commander that never abandoned his soldiers no matter their conditions, adding that the governor would call him in the morning and in the evening everyday to know his condition throughout his self-isolation days.
He said the efforts of the State helped mitigate the spread of the pandemic and infection as the State had 95% recovery rate.
