How Can You Support The Battle Against Coronavirus?
If you’ve been following the news, you are probably feeling helpless about the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, as long as there is no vaccine available, there is little you can do to end the crisis. However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t provide any support in the battle against COVID-19. Indeed, the time is for togetherness and community efforts. Everyone can play a role to help save lives and keep their neighbors safe. Whether you are a doctor or an enthusiastic blogger, you’d be surprised to know that you can join the fight against COVID-19. Even former patients who are recovered from the virus can play a significant role in the battle.
As helpless as you might feel right now in self-isolation, there is a lot you can do. Here is a brief and non-exhaustive list on how to use your unique skill set during the pandemic. Whether you are running a fashion business or finishing your studies as a financial advisor, seize the opportunity to reach out to those in need and make a difference.
Medical students: By boosting your knowledge
If you are a student with a high school diploma, you could consider taking advantage of online nursing aide programs to help to bridge the gap between patients and practitioners. Unlike doctors or nurses, you don’t need extensive medical knowledge. Your role is to support patients on a day-to-day basis with simple tasks such as washing, dressing, and planning treatment. While this might not sound like much, you need to consider how the pandemic is affecting medical resources. Doctors and nurses are struggling to cope with large volumes of patients. Ensuring you can free up resources by caring for patients can help doctors face the increasing demand. Additionally, you can also reassure people who are staying in hospitals through communication.
Business consultant: By offering support to medical teams
Business consultants can feel at a loss during the situation. However, your experience in managing demoralized staff and inefficient communication systems can be detrimental to the success of medical teams. Many doctors and nurses are faced with impossible choices around the world, such as deciding to let some patients die to save resources and equipment. It is for them a heartbreaking and soul-crushing situation. Still, unfortunately, lack of medical equipment has driven many hospitals to make tough choices they would have preferred not to make. As the situation continues, medical teams experience motivation issues, depression, and poor communication due to emotional challenges and fast-paced environments. You can offer your support to your local health care center to help them manage day after day. Video conferences, daily updates and tips, and a friendly and supportive presence can go a long way to relieve stress.
Restaurant: By feeding our doctors
Restaurants have been forced to shut down. However, if you are offering takeaway options, you can find ways of reaching out to your customers. But have you also considered helping doctors and nurses with regular meals? Health care workers are working overtime to keep us as safe as possible. Many of them need to make do with whatever they can find in shops to feed themselves. Take inspiration from Pizzana, a Los Angeles-based restaurant that has asked its customers to support their initiative to feed doctors, nurses, and emergency medical workers. Crowd-funding campaigns enable restaurants to deliver healthy and cooked meals to their local health care staff. It might not seem like much, but don’t be fooled. Health care teams need all the help they can get to stay healthy and strong during these difficult times.
Influencers: By helping people to stay safe
Social media influencers can be detrimental to public health. Indeed, influencers are individuals that the audience tends to trust. As such, you can use your reputation to help your readers and viewers stay safe. Chiara Ferragni, an Italian influencer, has taken over the Internet in Italy to help correct misinformation about the pandemic and become a public health advocate.
if you have a blog or a vlog, you could provide a similar service for your audience. Sharing information about the coronavirus outbreak could be a game-changer among young people. A lot of young adults and teens, for instance, fail to take the pandemic seriously. Many still organize parties and gatherings. Influencers can use their fame to share a message of caution.
Web developers: By supporting game platforms and needs
What can a web developer do? It might surprise you, but you can help self-isolation. What do people do when they’re stuck at home? You only need to look at the temporary collapse of Xbox Live and Nintendo online networks to find the answer. People are turning their gaming consoles on. Those who don’t have any console are looking for online alternatives to keep them entertained. Web developers can help to make more games available across all gaming platforms – smartphones, consoles, and PC. Additionally, you can also help upgrade old games so that they are compatible with more recent interfaces.
Fitness trainers: By encouraging people to stay fit
If you haven’t heard of Joe Wicks before, now you can’t miss his name. Joe Wicks is a British fitness advocate who shares his lifestyle and fitness tips in books, blogs, and on his Youtube channel. He now has a regular workout program for people who are staying at home. He’s also created a kid-friendly plan to help young ones stay active indoors.
If you are a fitness trainer, you can go online to share your workout tips, for instance. Besides, why not do a live class on Facebook or Youtube? You can keep your classes free – as your viewers are likely to find free resources to replace it, otherwise. But keeping people active can help boost their immune system and mental health, giving them a better chance against infections.
Finance specialist: By offering essential advice to those affected
It’s a unique situation in which many individuals who had a job at the beginning of March find themselves unemployed and have no way of replacing their jobs. As such, a loss of income is unavoidable. Many households are worried about making ends meet and recovering from pandemic debts. If you’re a professional and certified financial advisor, you can put your knowledge and skills at their service – for free. You can provide budgeting tips and tricks. You can help them reach out to creditors to discuss special arrangements during the pandemic. You can also support families with a list of charities and help for food, energy bills, and other essentials.
I don’t have any special skills!
You don’t need to have unique skills to support your community. You can help your most vulnerable neighbors by offering to deliver grocery shopping for them, for instance. Protecting seniors is important, as scammers will not hesitate to target them. Therefore, you can act as a person of contact for all suspicious demands in your community. You can also look after lonely individuals to ensure they are staying safe. If there are no seniors in your neighborhood, why not keep the local kids entertained with a game of I spy? This smart community has seen people decorating their windows and gardens to create a large scale I spy game.
I am a survivor
If you have contracted coronavirus in the past and have recovered, you can help hospitals by donating your plasma. Indeed, your plasma contains essential antibodies that can help patients fight the virus.
If there’s one thing the coronavirus pandemic has taught us, it’s that we’re much stronger together. Everybody can find a way of supporting their community, their local health care teams, and the infected patients. Something as simple as encouraging people to stay at home can make a huge difference. In short, put your skills and experience at the service of the fight against COVID-19.