Knowledge and Beliefs towards Universal Safety Precautions to flatten the curve during Novel Coronavirus Disease (nCOVID-19) Pandemic among general Public in India: Explorations from a National Perspective

Sai Krishna Gudi; Krishna Undela; Rajesh Venkataraman; Uday Venkat Mateti; Manik Chhabra; Sanath Nyamagoud; Komal Krishna Tiwari

Maintaining personal hygiene is an essential practice to be protected against any type of respiratory illness, such as COVID-19. Of this note, hand washing has been considered as an effective measure in preventing the cross-transmission from one to another [9] . Social distancing is a technique where actions are taken to reduce the frequency of contacts and to maintain a proper distance between individuals in order to limit the transmission of any communicable disease [10] . Usually, social distancing would be in-place where the spread has been believed to happen in a broader community. Other social distancing measures include isolation and quarantine, which also play a major role, particularly among those individuals presenting with symptoms, including confirmed cases. Isolation is an act of separating the ill-persons with a contagious disease from a non-infected person to reduce the spread [11] . Usually, isolation procedures are commonly observed in hospital settings. While, quarantine is considered as one of the effective methods in controlling communicable outbreaks and pandemics such as COVID-19, at a community level, where the movement of a person is restricted to the home or a designated facility, who are presumed to have been exposed to a contagious disease, but without having any symptoms [12] .