Coronavirus: Helping children understand why father is quarantined

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s page on the coronavirus crisis hosts a comic series to make children aware of the coronavirus threat and the ways to stay safe. The comic is titled: Kids, Vaayu & Corona 2: Can We Defeat Pandemic?

It is meant to help parents explain the situation to children, especially those below 14 years of age.The second version even addresses the problem of children missing parents who may have been quarantined because they are returning for countries that have seen a large number of cases.

To reassure them and settle doubts that the children may be facing, academics from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and Panjab University, Chandigarh has created the second series of comics to explain to children in simple terms on how to deal with coronavirus.

The comic’s storyline is that three children solicit the help of a super-hero, Vaayu, to resolve their queries. Despite the juvenile characters, the comic makes for rather grim reading.

A child’s father is being brought from Italy on a Globemaster airplane of the Indian Air Force. This becomes an occasion for Vaayu to discuss everything related to the pandemic: how the child’s father is being brought by the Air Force, why he cannot join the family for 14 days even after arrival.

Quarantine and isolation

Vaayu explains the difference between quarantine and isolation.

Vaayu explains that these people are kept separate from others so that other people coming into contact do not get infected. He tells them that coronavirus spreads from person to person through touch of a common infected surface and goes through a list of such commonplace items that may become dangerous to touch – crowded places, door knobs, public buses, trains and garden swings.

What a quarantined person should and shouldn’t do is also explained in detail. He educates children that coronavirus causes a disease called COVID-19 and takes them through the symptoms they should look out for.

The stages
The comic grows progressively grim as Vaayu turns to explaining what a pandemic means and what its various stages are. Vaayu tells them that when the disease spreads to large parts of the world instead of remaining limited to a particular area, it is referred to as pandemic. Vaayu explains that there are four stages of disease progression.

Vaayu instructs them to keep washing their hands with soap and water or use a hand sanitizer. He tells them they should stay at home and play indoor games. They should not visit any ill person who may have COVID-19 infection and also avoid visiting public places. Vaayu asks them not to panic, eat healthy and enjoy their stay at home with their family.

Vaayu also gives them the coronavirus helpline number in case they need to contact any authority for their state.

Also read:

• Coronavirus: IIT Hyderabad researchers make their own hand sanitizer
• IIT Delhi researchers develop low-cost test kits for COVID-19

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