Role of WOMEN during COVID Pandemic
View(s):Corona virus is an upper respiratory track illness which is highly contagious. It could rapidly spread via micro droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or exhales, via gastrointestinal track, and mucous membranes via contaminated fingers.
These droplets are too heavy to hang in the air, and quickly fall on floors or surfaces. You can be infected by breathing in the virus if you are within close proximity of someone who has COVID-19, or by touching a contaminated surface and then your eyes, nose or mouth. Considering the pandemic nature of this deadly virus, drastic actions in each country and collective actions in globally are needed to control and eradicate this virus.
Most importantly this virus reminds us an old saying ‘prevention is better than the cure’
There are many preventive measures which can be carrying out by all of us as responsible individuals in the globe.
We are now facing a 3rd wave of this covid-19 spread as a country, and as per records this time it has become serious than the first two waves.
We are at a rate that this has been reported as a community spread which we didn’t seeing during previous cases and also new reports shows that the virus concentration of patients reported this time are much higher than previous cases.
As women we can take many steps to help during this pandemic and we can always pay back to the community.
Considering the family unit, mother is the root of the family tree, who always cares for the whole family. Women can start up from there, as she needs to make sure that the family unit is safe from this disease and this way a community will be safe, country will be safe and it helps even to reduce number of patients affected with covid-19 globally.
It is very important that she provides a balanced diet to the family during all the time as balanced diet with adequate nutrients and healthful lifestyle leads and sustains wellness.
We all are blessed with an immune system which is working as our guard to protect us from viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites.
Therefore it is obvious that if we can have an optimally functioning immune system, we have a higher power to combat with these infections and same applied with covid-19 as well. Beauty is that we can strengthen our immune system by having required nutrients in our diet.
Many researchers have found out that to prevent the disease and reduced complications and deaths associated with covid-19, it is really important to strength innate immune systems via natural means, such as vitamin D adequacy.
Though this disease can affect anyone, the proven fact is that it is predominately infects those with weaker immune systems. Several micro nutrients are also known to support immune system. Some of these many be different vitamins as Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Omega 3 fatty acids, anti-oxidants, and some trace minerals.
Some of those researchers have identified that there is a huge impact that Vitamin D can do a lot over building up the immunity. Another wonderful vitamin we can use during this pandemic is Vitamin C. Increment of vitamin C also can generate immunity against these viral diseases. You can add vitamin C rich food items to your daily meals including papaya, guava, oranges, green leaves etc. as those can pump good amount of vitamins needed for proper function of immune systems.
Minerals like Zinc also need to be added to your meals during this period and you can have this added to your body by having sesame, egg york, small fish etc.
If you have kids who are refusing home foods, try to present these in different methods and somehow add these important nutrients to their meals. As a woman you can make sure that the family is getting a proper balanced diet with ingredients to improve their innate immunity as above and it can help them to get fight with viruses like covid 19.
This way you can help to increase immunity in your family unit and in the same way we can increase the herd immunity.
It is also important that you do proper hand washing before preparation of foods and all raw food items including rice, vegetables, fruits, meats, fish etc. needs to be thoroughly cleaned. Since virus can transmitted through the mucous membrane via contaminated fingers this is important rule to follow to make sure the safety of you and your loved ones.
It is also very important that we as women can educate your kids and family members about the importance of intake of water especially at this time. It will be helpful to improve your immunity and keep you hydrated. Especially kids who doesn’t like to drink much water needs to be somehow convinced and the required amount of water needs to be fed to them during each day. Since kids are at home due to closure of schools, mothers can easily work on these facts and supply them proper amount of water and also nutritious food which will enable those little buds to combat with this virus.
Also since we consider the women as the root of the house, she can always educate husband, children and other family members about proper sanitization.
Women need to educate the family that proper sanitisation and having maintaining a 1 meter distance could always help to prevent from this disease. Wearing masks and making others of your family to wear masks in public is also equally important. It is also a fact that people who do smoke are likely to infect covid -19 easily and also the complications will be much higher if they get caught with this disease. Therefore as women we can educate men and other women in society to avoid this habit at least during pandemic. Always women can act as role models in the family to help and show others the importance of prevention.
The other important role which can be played by women are being teachers at home and do home schooling in the way they can. Home schooling became a popular topic during this lock down where most of the time parents specially mothers were trying to teach kids at home.
The best part of this is that, being mothers they also were able to identify talents, capabilities and capacities of their own kids and kids had more time to spend with parents rather than running to number of tuition classes.
During this time women can explain most of those important life lessons and pair up with them to do educational activities at home
Also this pandemic opened doors for women empowerment; this is a good side of covid-19 if we looked at it positively.
Many women started to identify their challenges and now trying to make some earnings out of it, which is really a good trend. Each woman has different capabilities, so it is ideal at this point that if they can make use of these to build up the financial sustainability in the family that can also lead to help in bringing down mental instability of population especially men due to lack of finances to manage families during this pandemic.
- Dr. Rasanjalee Abeywickrama