The pandemic halted the entire world to a standstill where countries went into immediate lockdown due to the spread of the disease and people were forced to adapt and change accordingly. This change was fast, unexpected and mostly, quite difficult to adjust to. The lack of preparation, communication, awareness, and bare neglect of authorities as well as citizens not only worsened the situation but also elongated the duration of the lockdown. The preliminary response to the situation was judged on the basis of generality being applied to universality, rather than looking at behavior and data through a lens of particularity. The adjustment to the pandemic was heavily dependent on what capacity people had and how many resources they had at their disposal. The worse affected by the pandemic were those whose daily amenities were dependent on all the factors that were shut down. For a country to have the capacity and the capability to fight against an infectious virus, as much it requires financial resources, efficient medical infrastructure, and hardworking officials, it also requires an aware and proactive citizen involvement who are willing to cooperate and contribute towards the fast recovery of the country. Understanding the behavior and patterns in the same amongst the most general population can provide a structure to address citizen woes and provide a system that doesn’t inconvenience people as much as COVID-19 did.
Literature Review:
Due to the sudden change in circumstances, a lot of research has emerged studying people’s behavior and their response systems. This research focuses on their compassion response, sense of responsibility and effects of their mental health.
A study conducted on the “Crucial role the psychiatrists can play.” shows the effect of the pandemic and the role of psychiatrists in helping with the stress caused due to the same. It talks about issues that have arisen due to the lockdown and the social dysfunction that has followed it.
Another paper that focuses on “COVID-19: The forgotten priorities of the pandemic.” talks about the preventive measure taken during the pandemic and how they may have negative impacts. It connects the impact of the pandemic and the socioeconomic status of groups that may struggle because of the norms of the same. In this article, they explore the impact of COVID-19 and its prevention measures on the well-being of vulnerable populations.
A study conducted on the “Compassion Fatigue among Healthcare, Emergency and Community Service Workers” explains why people might feel less empathetic and their neglectful behavior in general given the circumstance with importance given to people in fields such as healthcare, emergency and community service workers who are particularly susceptible to developing compassion fatigue.
There is also research being conducted on the “Study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in Indian population during COVID-19 pandemic.” which attempted to assess the knowledge, attitude, anxiety experience, and perceived mental health care needs among the adult Indian population during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire using a non-probability snowball sampling technique. A total of 662 responses were received.
A study on, “More effective strategies are required to strengthen public awareness of COVID-19: Evidence from Google Trends.” talks about the awareness of people regarding Covid-19 using Google trends and then evaluating their willingness or unwillingness in believing and practicing the regulations put in place.
Research Gap:
The focus of all the papers is in generality or on medical workers. There is a lack of research on the general Indian population or studies conducted on the effect of the pandemic on the different classes of Indian society. There is an incomplete representation of varied populations. Enough attention has not been given to the cause of duress for the general population and their inclination toward why they prefer normalcy. There is a geographical lack in research conducted in Asia, specifically South Asia. Most research is based on Western countries.
Research Question
How do people in a close community, in a pandemic, respond to protocols and how much do they adhere to medical regulations?
The aim of this paper is to look at how people adhere to protocols and observe their response to medical regulations in a close community and analyze the reasoning for the same.
Variables
The studies mainly focus on the effects of a pandemic on people’s behavior and their adherence to medical protocols. It looks at close community behavior and people’s compassion and sense of responsibility towards a community risk.
Operationalization of terms
The terms of this paper may have varied meanings from different perspectives. This paper focuses on human behavior in the context of the manner in which people respond to pandemic-related stimuli. This behavior is looked at with relation to their adherence abilities that is the level of strictness according to which people adhere to protocols.
This observation is made in a close community that looks at people living in a surrounding area in close proximity. One main component to look at in people’s behavioral patterns is the involvement of compassion which is their empathy towards people in general. All of this is seen qualitatively by looking at their sense of responsibility which is their responsibility related to community welfare.
Importance of the study:
In situations of panic and disorder, individual actions and responses affect community welfare to a great extent. The pandemic is not something that is exclusive to certain people, it is a situation where every single person has to deal with it in some way or the other. It is a situation that can only be resolved by cooperation from everyone and at the same time a situation which can be worsened by the neglect of the people. There is a need to understand why people choose to follow or not follow protocols and what causes that response. If a strategy to mitigate spread can be found and implemented at the root levels, it can help strategize plans that help in curbing any disease as soon as possible. The spread of the pandemic became difficult because it was hard to control massive populations at the same time. Understanding critical behavior and establishing incentives that give people the possibility and scope to live in a place where they are comfortable should provide a framework that helps with adaptive strategies.
Research Design:
This research has been conducted using primary data (ethnographic journal, participant observation, interview) and secondary data (literature review). The basis of the paper is qualitative, quantitative data has not been collected or employed for any section of the paper. The basis of the journal was on participant observation taken in the field indirectly and in-depth data was collected by conducting one on one telephonic interviews. The subjects for observation were chosen randomly while the interviews were done selectively. The data collected isn’t very extensive, however, it probes into the basic rationality of answering the research question.
Literature review on methodology:
The basic methodology for the paper is a sample study of an observable population, secondary research materials and one-on-one telephonic interviews.
A study conducted on “Ethnography and participant observation” which focused on describing ethnography and participant observation while providing a framework for conducting it correctly and efficiently was used for the proper application of ethnographic observations.
Another study on the problem of data reduction was employed which focused on forming strategies for analyzing data in a close group where the subjects are in a natural setting.
To understand the meaning of ethnography and ethnology and the difference in the meaning of the same and its application across different branches of anthropology, “Ethnography. The Blackwell encyclopedia of sociology” was referenced.
Process of the study conducted:
The process of the study is quite basic. The initial step was to decide a field of study to conduct an ethnographic study in, then a topic was chosen and then participant observation was used as the key basis for data collection. The second step was to conduct in-depth interviews with individuals and transcribe them. These interviews were then coded according to themes and chunked on an excel sheet as part of the qualitative analysis. Primary data collection depended on these both steps. Secondary data was collected from academic papers to justify and rationalize the primary data.
Timeline followed:
The study was conducted for three months from 10th August 2020 to 5th October 2020 with observational data collected weekly or bi-weekly. Interviews were conducted in the same span of time. Analysis of both was done in October.
Analysis of observation and interviews:
The general theme of the observation and the interviews is such that the pandemic is mainly looked at as an inconvenience rather than an actual medical threat. The lack of adherence to common rules seems to come from a more community behavior outlook rather than individualistic preference. Adding to it, the lack of strict policies, forceful abidance and fear of consequences adds to the freedom one has in not following required medical regulations. It has formed a culture of negligence and complacency. This is seen in places where the narrative is in the lines of, “I realized the amount of work that piled up in the house after our helpers stopped coming how much important they were for the household.” or “To maintain that normalcy we shouldn’t be forced to follow the rules and protocols that were set when the pandemic was still huge.”. The members show a lack of awareness and responsibility towards their community by not following medical regulations. This behavior could stem from the fact that they have utmost faith in themselves and the people around them that they won’t infect or be infected. The explanation behind this rationale could be the fact that they belong to a high-class society and think of themselves as healthy. This very notion, however, is challenged by the fact that this perception is also carried over to the workers, guards and helpers; which brings another conclusion that they may very well just ‘not care’ enough about the seriousness of the disease. This is seen in observations and conversations where the narrative is, “If one in two persons is wearing a mask, then both of them are safe, right?” and “it’s okay to go out without having a mask on or without social distancing yourself from other people since everything has gone back to normal.”. The lack of precautions and indulgence in group activity almost seems to stem from a belief in faux safety one feels at home. As long as one is in the enclosure of society, the virus can’t affect them- which itself seems to bring itself up from the religious conditioning that devotion to God will protect ones against illness and bad luck. The concern for health seems much more individualistic rather than for community welfare where one’s own needs and wants are placed higher than collective wellness. God seems to play a very significant role in determining how negligence and ignorance play into people’s behavior during a pandemic. Social and religious conditioning seems to have shaped certain community behavior is a manner that rejects scientific knowledge and in a way expert advice. People seem to put more faith in their traditional orthodox beliefs rather than in well-researched preventive measures. God is seen as an untouchable, omnipotent and all-powerful entity that if not praised and prayed to, will betray the trust and bring upon illness. The devotion almost seems like it’s out of fear rather than pure blind compassion. This narrative is seen in parts, “congregation seemed to be of children, women and men from the society who lived in close proximity”, “an old lady went around the building distributing prasad” and “people welcomed her and took her prasad”. This theme of complacency, denial and lack of responsibility is seen in a pattern throughout the observations and the interviews. While there are some cases of adherence to protocol, it seems most of it out of fear of repercussion for not following them rather than from a fear of the disease. There was also a continued theme for appreciating government efforts and also criticizing them for their lack of effort. This was seen in the narratives too, “Maybe if the government had provided provisions before you know they put the lockdown, the situation would be better for them” and “Modi Ji has certainly been handling this situation very well. It may seem like there are a lot of positive cases, but if you compare it to the overall population ratio, then you'll see that it's not that bad”. While there was a lack of compassion and responsibility in adhering protocols, there was an understanding in why people lacked it, seen as “I understand the want for human interaction.” and “you cannot force these procedures on people”. The general observation of people’s shallow adherence was also reasoned by the fact from the interviews that the pandemic was perhaps too sudden to adapt to as they never had the resources, seen as, “I don’t know they would have survived without getting an income. I see so many news reports on people struggling and dying and truly I think people need to have more compassion for people who make their lives easier.”. There was also a constant theme of mental duress caused due to the pandemic, seen as, “staying inside the home all the time can get a little suffocating sometimes”. This notion can perhaps be backed by the observation in the journal using compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is common phenomenon psychologists are using to describe the disconnect and sudden adjustment most people have shown toward COVID. It is defined as “a state of physical and mental exhaustion caused by a depleted ability to cope with one’s everyday environment.” It can be understandable the need to want to return to normalcy due to this. The consistent behavior of people may be due to exhaustion due to chronic anxiety given the situation. This may also be due to a confirmation bias where one wants the reality of things to adhere to their wants so much that they dissociate from it and go on with their normal lives. Extroverted people perhaps relate to this much more to this, as the core of their personality is dependent on social interaction.
The responses to the interview questions were mixed but there was a common essence of both wanting to adhere to the protocol while still understanding of why one might get frustrated with them. While there were instances where they praised the government but mostly there was a general disdain towards the government’s hasty decisions which neglected the common population. People seemed to be wanting for relaxation and didn’t necessarily show a huge amount of fear of the virus. In the case of empathy, most of them seemed to be self-involved and concerned about their immediate environment rather than of the vast population. Their disdain for people’s actions seemed to be rooted in the fact that the people who had complete disregard for the precautions were ignorant and irresponsible, yet at the same time, they did incline towards leniency in the precautions.
Limitations and prospects of further study:
This study has potential limitations. Due to the nature of nature's question and the lack of extensiveness of the research, it may be deemed biased or too micro due to its observational and qualitative basis. The research doesn’t employ quantitative methods for statistically involving any calculable variable, thus the conclusions and analysis is limited by the small sample size and secondary data. Due to the small sample size, there is scope for further research and observation with the same basis on a larger scale to probe deeper insights of the issue. The field conditions are liable to change dynamically thus this paper is only preliminary and requires further data collection conducted over a longer period of time.
Conclusion:
The paper managed to derive a possible relation between why people respond the way they do and why there is a lack of adherence to medical protocols. The answer to the research question lies in the fact that people do not like change and it is easier to stick to normalcy than embrace disaster. Mental duress came out as one of the main causes for making people shallow in their adherence to regulations and their lack of responsibility in community behavior. People whose lives depend on daily income seemed to have no choice but to go against the rules because their survivability depends heavily on work and the government did not provide help outside of the lockdown. The general idea coming out from the study is that people’s perspective regarding the pandemic is not serious because the severity of the disease has not shocked them yet and even if it has, they are in denial about it. It is seen that it is easier for people to do the bare minimum and live with a facade rather than stick to the rules and not have a choice. The response of people thus becomes dependent on the amount of control they have on their choices rather than their empathetic capacities.