Author: Dr. Lucy FONJONG UDIKOH

Abstract: Like many cases of past epidemics, COVID-19 could be imagined as one of the most dramatic pathetic occurrences in the world after the Spanish flu pandemic in 1981. Convinced that within six months of its outbreak, it has not only affected global socio-cultural, political, and economic lifestyles, but the loss of human lives is quite alarming. This makes it a serious health threat as the WHO declares that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019. It could be a loophole to development for many countries especially developing countries with daily increasing affected cases like Cameroon through the pending plight of readjustments. With participant observation as our major method -a technique in association with interviews and life stories, our data collection seeks to understand the dilemmas of alterations to stop the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, expose the sociocultural constraints to the current global trend and the need to check the effectiveness of the necessary measures put in place to roll out the epidemic. Evidenced by the wearing of face-mask, the washing of hands as well as the usage of disinfectants prevails to stop it spread. However, social distancing and other practical measures are still very challenging due to family tides and mindsets of a communalistic African spirit besides, individual views about the existence of COVID-19 and vaccines. Resilience to new cultural traits is imperative notwithstanding continuous education and awareness for social readjustments cannot be over emphasis.   

Keywords: challenges, social, treads, COVID-19, urban area, Cameroon