Ali Inayat, Saddique Salma, Ali Shahbaz
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Department of Community Health Sciences, Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women, Nawabshah, Sindh, Pakistan.
Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2021 Jul 12:1-6. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2021.220.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has received various distinct perspectives and responses at the local as well as global levels. The current study pays attention to local perspectives, which have appeared in the Sindh Province of Pakistan.
Given the constraints of the pandemic, and using convenience sampling, we conducted 10 online group discussions, 7 one-on-one interviews, and 30 cellphone discussions from a small town of Sindh Province. We made every effort to make our sampling inclusive in terms of decisive sociocultural factors: gender, religion, level of formal education, and occupation/job. We obtained data from women, men, Muslims and non-Muslims, the formally educated and noneducated, government employees, and daily wage laborers. Moreover, to perform content analysis, we used social media such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
We have found that some people consider COVID-19 a "political" game, "supernatural test" or "Western plot". The given perceptions then guide further actions: either ignore or adopt the preventive measures or take supernatural preventive measures. Considering it as a test of God, Muslims perform prayers, while the Bāgrrī community who practice Hinduism are taking cow urine to deal with the virus. This study brings these perspectives to the center stage; yet, the results cannot be generalized across the country, or within the province. Moreover, the study situates these perspectives within the global and socio-cultural, economic, and political contexts and invites more in-depth studies to inquire why such perspectives emerge.
We discuss different narratives concerning COVID-19 in a small town of Sindh Province. We maintain that documenting these various perspectives and analyzing their impacts on the preparedness programs is essential, yet understanding the causes behind the stated standpoints is equally essential, if not more so.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）在地方和全球层面都得到了各种不同的观点和应对措施。本研究关注巴基斯坦信德省出现的地方观点。
鉴于疫情的限制，我们采用便利抽样的方法，在信德省的一个小镇进行了10次在线小组讨论、7次一对一访谈和30次手机讨论。我们尽一切努力使我们的抽样在决定性的社会文化因素方面具有包容性：性别、宗教、正规教育水平和职业/工作。我们从女性、男性、穆斯林和非穆斯林、受过正规教育和未受过教育的人、政府雇员和日薪劳动者那里获取了数据。此外，为了进行内容分析，我们使用了WhatsApp和Facebook等社交媒体。
我们发现，一些人将COVID-19视为一场“政治”游戏、“超自然考验”或“西方阴谋”。这些认知随后指导进一步的行动：要么忽视或采取预防措施，要么采取超自然的预防措施。穆斯林将其视为上帝的考验而进行祈祷，而信奉印度教的巴格里社区则饮用牛尿来应对病毒。本研究将这些观点推到了中心位置；然而，这些结果不能推广到全国或该省内。此外，该研究将这些观点置于全球以及社会文化、经济和政治背景中，并呼吁进行更深入的研究，以探究为何会出现这些观点。
我们讨论了信德省一个小镇上关于COVID-19的不同说法。我们认为记录这些不同观点并分析它们对防范计划的影响至关重要，但理解这些立场背后的原因同样重要，甚至更为重要。
