Religion and Public Health Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic |Biomedgrid

The progression of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) towards the pandemic [1], witnessed a dialogue on religion; on one hand to strengthen the efforts of public health agencies by quoting tenets of religion that parallel and promote measures to curb the spread of the infection, and on the other hand, defying the protocols set by governing bodies by engaging in public gatherings in places of worship, creating foci for propagating the infection [2]. This discourse grows in the domains of journalism and social media, with direct implications on the health behaviour of individuals, in agreement or disagreement with the arguments. However, there seems to be a harmful silence in academic discourse on the study of this relationship, towards supplementing the efforts of governments and frontline workers, and protecting them from risk taking health behaviour, influenced by religion.