THE SPIRITUAL BELIEF TO PROTECT FROM COVID-19: THE CASE STUDY OF INDIA

Abstract

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has presented unprecedented health challenges, resulting in complete restrictions on lives across the world. This research assesses spiritual care as an essential component of comprehensive health management, particularly in terms of adaptation, acceptance of illness, suffering, and, ultimately, of death. This article provides information on the need to provide spiritual care as a means of coping and wellbeing for families, patients, and health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research examined how the Indian people understood the Indian Prime Minister’s announcement to adopt a ritual belief in this pandemic. The research questions examine how the pandemic has disrupted religious observances and how people changed their performance of ritual work in fear of the coronavirus. The authors found that, while people were spiritually motivated by the Prime Minister's appeal, the mass vaccination program was the solution to the pandemic, and was the primary factor decreasing new cases.