Experience and perception of urban community towards COVID-19 pandemic

The study is aimed to frame the experience and general perception of the urban community towards the COVID-19 and its outbreak, assessing the primary perception of appropriate knowledge level based on their daily life experience on diverse aspects, i.e., socio-economic crisis, human stress, etc. The study followed the qualitative method by interviewing 40 adults (both male and female) from Dhaka city with a semi-structured open-ended checklist. For selecting the interviewees, a purposive sampling method was followed. All interviews were conducted through telephone and online call as per following the social distance protocol of WHO (World Health Organization).Among 40interviewees, most of them used social media to obtain COVID-19 information. They all have average knowledge of general hygiene and spreading procedure endorsed by the government and WHO. Out of 40 participants, 80% (32) reported a diminution of income during the lockdown, and several cases were found of losing income to utmost zero. 92% opined on the apparent vulnerability of stallholder business and private sector service holder communities regarding income decline and job loss. During lockdown industries had stopped production, leaving millions of precarious laborers and diverse workers without any resources, which is a contra picture of the experience of 40% of participants, who are mostly government service holders. However, all participants reported cleaner air quality and improved pollution situation. The participants uttered the “new normal” concept as altering how they eat, pray, work, have relationships, and study. 62.5% agreed upon the issue that during the lockdown, domestic violence has increased in urban families. Regarding the urban community’s coping capacity, 75% denoted that they have no idea how to cope with the impending economic crisis and the loss of jobs/income. The study winded-up that as the world-wide threat of COVID-19 lingers to emerge on a larger scale, greater efforts through substitutive community-based preventive measures and awareness must be followed by the government, given the economic stress and less working opportunities yet to come in a lower-middle-income country like Bangladesh with dense population.