Abstract:
The paper examined the social distancing individuals with COVID 19 pandemic and its implications for counselling. People with COVID-19 experience stigma more than their non-COVID-19 counterparts. The paper examined how symptom severity of COVID-19 affects stigmatization, operationalized as how people socially distance themselves from COVID-19 individuals. Future research should test for other mechanisms to increase social distancing acknowledging the role of participants' mental health. If clustering of people is considered a major catalyst in the spread of corona virus, social distancing is therefore important for its control. But compliance has remained a concern, especially in Nigeria. We examine the concept and global trends in social distancing in infectious disease control and the negative feedback on public health as revealed in current body of knowledge from news media and other literatures. The risks associated with failure to comply with social distancing as a result of ignorance or defiance are highlighted. The current outbreak of the novel coronavirus also known as COVID-19 was declared as a public health emergency by the WHO were over a million people have been affected by the disease with over 50000 deaths till date. Social distancing is a method to minimize crowd interactions and prevent the spread of disease within groups of people. This is a common practice which has been carried out over generations to minimize the spread of virus by limiting its reproduction rate among communities. The social distancing methods recommended to achieve this, are aimed at combating to reduces the spread of COVID-19 diseases and addressing new strategies in resolving through counselling the populace and the involvement of all stakeholders both in public and private capacity-government, counselling association, communities and individuals- to supply resources, expertise and information that are required to ensure a safe environment. The paper concluded by suggesting that trained personnel in counselling on clinical and health counselling should be placed in counselling centres to assist the populaces on the effects of COVID-19 diseases on communities and nation at large.
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