Perception and practice of community regarding nCOVID-19 prevention and opportunities for making social and environmental changes in India

The ongoing pandemic of nCOVID-19 had posed numerous challenges and few opportunities. To ensure the ultimate success, citizen's devotion to these control measures is important, which is generally affected by their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) to COVID-19 according to KAP theory. The present study was carried out to explore the efforts of society to curb the spread of infection, to estimate the self-evaluated stress in the different social groups, and the perception of individual risk for necessary social and environmental changes taking this time of epidemic as an opportunity. An online questionnaire was prepared using Google form. The questionnaire was then circulated openly in media via e-mails and social platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. The study included 508 participants. The majority of the rural, as well as urban respondents, were aware of the precautions to be taken to avoid nCOVID-19 infection such as avoiding close contact with anyone, avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth, avoid spitting in public and avoid participating in large gatherings. In response to the national strategy for preventing the spread of the infection and the stage at which it faltered, the majority (56.9%) felt that it failed in maintaining social distancing. Many awareness programs and safety behaviors have their own impact on society that improved the situation, whereas still up to 50.6 percent of the individual’s perception of risk is high. Thus to conclude, the individuals were taking steps to protect themselves against the infection and recommended that the policymakers should adopt newer policies