Facing the COVID-19 pandemic with science and practice

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a health system crisis, deaths and socioeconomic hardship. In order to minimize the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the municipality of Lavras, a partnership was developed between the Lavras City Hall and the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA). The present study aimed to describe the main prevention measures proposed in Lavras and to evaluate the community's perception of the management model towards COVID-19. A public online questionnaire, with 20 multiple-choice questions, about the measures to confront covid was submitted to the Google Forms platform from April 22nd to April 30th, 2020. The data regarding the strategies carried out to deal with COVID-19 was obtained from the published municipal ordinances. During the eight days that the questionnaire was applied, a total of 8,874 respondents from Lavras were obtained. Among these respondents, 31.64% (2,808) were men, 68.15% (6,047) were women, and 0.21% (19) declared "another option". When the participants were asked whether they are respecting the social distance measures, 7,452 (84.1%) of them answered "yes."Also, a total of 57.4% of the participants reported that the social distancing measures compromised their family income. However, despite the impact of this economic compromise on these families, 93.82% of the respondents believe that the measures applied are important. When analyzing the questionnaire responses, it was noticeable that despite residents suffering negative economic consequences, there was great popular approval of preventive measures, such as social distancing and the use of masks. In addition, it was possible to notice the population's trust in the measures recommended by professionals at UFLA and the city hall, highlighting the importance of establishing contact between authorities and the population during decision making.