A multi-country assessment of societal resilience and preparedness during covid-19 times. A review among the coronadx horizon 2020 project

Background and Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to complex challenges concerning the spreading of misinformation about origin, symptoms, and prevention of SARS-CoV-2. Unclear, changing, and variable guidelines confuse the public and plant seeds for misinformation. A wide range of strategies were used by leaders across many sectors to foster positive social norms and encourage people to protect their community and selves from COVID-19. The study provides an overview of communications important role in influencing societys behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in ten different countries. Methods: This paper presents a narrative analysis of the currently available data on societal responses and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning from February 1, 2020, to March 1, 2022. Ten nations — Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Romania, France and Germany, United Kingdom, and Israel — were selected for inclusion both within and outside the EU, based on their heterogeneous COVID-19 responses. Academic literature was retrieved using PubMed/Medline and Google Scholar. Grey literature was consulted ranging from institutional reports to archival records, policy briefs, books, websites, and news from verified sources. Results: Adoption of domestic and travel regulations was different across countries, some more efficient than others. Some specific official communication strategies about COVID-19 have shown to be effective in increasing vaccine uptake while social media as source of information was strongly related to vaccine hesitancy. Israel and Portugal were exploited as benchmarks for vaccination strategies by other countries. Conclusions: Low public confidence due to infodemic and inconsistent policies underscored the central role of Public Health to develop proper strategies and exploit digital tools to increase awareness. The potential of social media and digital platforms in tackling health emergencies should be better understood. Additionally, healthcare workers’communication skills can be improved to effectively deal with future epidemics and be trusted by the population.