When I was a kid we had a health ditty - ‘coughs and sneezes spread diseases’.  In the context of COVID-19, this ditty becomes highly relevant.  It should not need repeating but it is essential that individuals take their responsibility seriously and implement the now much-publicised precautions and behaviours.

Correctly there is considerable emphasis on personal responsibility in the public health message on COVID-19.  But, in this case, our actions, as well as inactions, have significant consequences for others at a variety of levels. The virus is but another example of when the personal has extended consequences for others nationally and internationally.

Yet other examples include climate change, environmental degradation, bigotry and racism and gender-based violence – but that’s for another day.

The current moment provides us all with the opportunity to make real our commitment to our community, our society (especially those who are vulnerable) and to others beyond these shores. 

But there’s a problem. Sadly but not surprisingly, much that we currently know about the virus says that emphasising the individual and personal during an epidemic encourages the stigmatisation of people affected by the disease.  We know this from previous pandemics especially HIV and AIDS. 

If we convince people that the disease can be prevented by personal actions (washing hands or self-isolating in this case), its corollary is often wrongly assumed – that those who get the virus didn’t wash their hands or didn’t self-isolate. And so a victim-blaming mentality emerges.  And, obviously, if it emerged first in China and then in Italy, then obviously it’s their fault.

Any brief dip into the world of social media illustrates a related ‘defence’ mechanism - vitriol and venom directed towards individuals and groups affected by the virus – in this case primarily the Chinese and the Italians.  Never found wanting when an opportunity arises, little Malta, little America and little Britain brigades gallop in to fuel xenophobia. 

Last weekend witnessed widespread and ongoing negative commentary in mainstream and social media internationally about foreigners both near and far and about how ‘they’ are responsible.  Blaming them is but a short step from taking action against them whether valid or justified or not.

Challenging this stigmatisation from the outset is an increasingly important part of the necessary response as we move through the various stages of the COVID-19 crisis. 

We equally need to reinforce the message that you can’t protect yourself from COVID-19 by attacking its victims or by pillaring Italians or Chinese or Africans.  We will simply fail to protect ourselves by shutting out foreigners, much as that appeals to ongoing bigotry.  Despite the message of opportunists such as Trump, in the case of public health building a wall around ourselves just won’t work – at any level.

The virus highlights a piece of fundamental learning that we routinely refuse to recognise. Our health and the health of our communities and societies cannot be separated from that of others near and far. 

This crisis requires all of us to play our part at many levels – in our families, our communities, our workplaces and businesses including in our conversations, social media commentary and public utterances.

This is a challenge we all need to face together and not in separate silos isolated from each other.