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Field
Abstract
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Before
Lahore, a vibrant urban centre, home to 15 million residents, was driving a large
percentage of COVID cases in Punjab and hence it was imperative that the transmis-
sion in Lahore was contained. Evidence established the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical
interventions to reduce transmission but most of the existing experimental and non-
experimental literature was coming from rural South Asia. In collaboration with Lahore
Divisional Government, an innovative intervention, adapted from rural trials conducted
in Bangladesh, was tested and rolled out to increase mask wearing as the city awaited
its vaccine supplies. The intervention registered a significant increase of 5.55 percent
in mask wearing over the eight-week intervention period. The intervention had a dual
focus: It increased access to information and the product itself i.e. masks and secondly
it increased the salience of the messaging in urban areas again by a dual deployment of
mobile and permanent messaging nodes in the treatment areas
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After
Lahore, a vibrant urban centre, home to 15 million residents, was driving a large percentage of COVID cases in Punjab and hence it was imperative that the transmission in Lahore was contained. Evidence established the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical
interventions to reduce transmission but most of the existing experimental and non-experimental literature was coming from rural South Asia. In collaboration with Lahore Divisional Government, an innovative intervention, adapted from rural trials conducted in Bangladesh, was tested and rolled out to increase mask wearing as the city awaited its vaccine supplies. The intervention had a dual focus: It increased access to information and the product itself i.e. masks and secondly it increased the salience of the messaging in urban areas again by a dual deployment of mobile and permanent messaging nodes in the treatment areas
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