Abstract
The South African disaster response activities surpass risk reduction since the implementation of the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002 (DMA) and the National Disaster Management Framework of 2005 (NDMF). Risk reduction, in particular risk communication, remained unexploited until the occurrence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The legislation and policy mandate a proactive approach for disaster management, requiring a focus on disaster risk reduction. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the significance of risk communication as a critical prevention and mitigatory strategy in disaster risk management, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Key to risk communication success is ensuring adequate comprehension, accurate perception of the disseminated information, and compliance with regulations. Questions of trustworthiness, acceptability, effectiveness, and usefulness of messages and strategies communicated sought answers from the Bloemfontein population. Furthermore, the Agenda-setting Theory provided the grounding for the study. The study sample was picked in a stratified random sampling manner, using the confidence level and margin of error equation. A questionnaire survey was used to collect the data required to achieve the research objectives. Risk communication as a disaster risk reduction strategy implemented concurrently with imposed regulations was found to have played a vital role in mitigating the virus spread. However, the respondents were not aware of the local disaster management centre, which is supposed to be engaged in COVID-19 disaster management activities.
Highlights
Amidst the pandemonium of developing a coronavirus vaccine, preventing and mitigating the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), risk communication proved by far to be one of the profound methods of containment (South African Government News Agency 2020; World Health Organization [WHO] 2020a)
The President of South Africa acceded to these directives and on 15 March 2020, announced the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic as a national disaster (Republic of South Africa 2020b; Reyburn 2020)
In a 2016 Community Survey, at least 52% of households have piped water inside the yard, 39% receive piped water inside the dwelling, 4% receive piped water on a community stand, 2% in a community tap, and the rest obtain water from elsewhere (Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs 2020). These results show that at least the water situation in Bloemfontein is not a deterring factor when it comes to responding to COVID-19
Summary
Amidst the pandemonium of developing a coronavirus vaccine, preventing and mitigating the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), risk communication proved by far to be one of the profound methods of containment (South African Government News Agency 2020; World Health Organization [WHO] 2020a). World leaders realised that they are not at war with the virus but with the human factor, which involves analysing how human beings behave physically and psychologically in response or relation to a particular situation (Rouse 2020). In this case, world leaders and health officials made a call to limit the spread of COVID-19 through relaying robust preventative and mitigative measures. The President of South Africa acceded to these directives and on 15 March 2020, announced the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic as a national disaster (Republic of South Africa 2020b; Reyburn 2020)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
