Religious cliche and COVID-19 management: a barrier for physicians

The authors discuss the COVID-19 pandemic which is a global crisis and efforts are focused concomitantly on limiting the transmission and reducing the impact of the virus. From hand hygiene to vaccine development, physicians around the globe are trying to explore an effective and efficient disease management protocol. However, as with every other disease, COVID-19 has developed a religious cliché that has created a barrier for physicians in disease management. Especially in the developing world, practices are observed that are resulting in avoidance of precautionary measures as proposed by physicians. Additionally, the prevailing belief of life and death being controlled by the Almighty is also becoming a religious stigma in adopting precautionary measures. Today, people are looking to religion for COVID-19 protection but by doing so are not following the basic precautionary measures, and that is a barrier faced by the frontliners against COVID-19.