If you want to know how you can reduce your chances of experiencing any serious health problems from a coronavirus infection, look to El Salvador.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele tweeted a video earlier this week that he said is the country’s “new ad campaign, to help prevent #COVID19 deaths and hospitalizations.”
The video is just over a minute long and includes the kind of commonsense solutions that leaders of every country in the world should promote to negate the effects of the pandemic. If people followed the advice El Salvador offered, there would be fewer deaths and hospitalizations.
For once, a campaign about a public health crisis focuses on health itself.
Our new ad campaign, to help prevent #COVID19 deaths and hospitalizations. pic.twitter.com/QIS5B02hnP
— Nayib Bukele ?? (@nayibbukele) January 4, 2022
The video starts by telling people that living a healthy lifestyle reduces the complications from coronavirus. It tells people who are overweight or obese or have high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic illnesses they are at greater risk of death from coronavirus.
It recommends people to a healthy diet, try to lose weight, get fresh air, exercise, go outside to get sunlight to improve vitamin D levels, get vitamin C from citrus fruit or juice, drink water to keep kidneys healthy, reduce stress by relaxing, get at least six hours of sleep per night, and avoid alcohol and fatty and sugary foods. The video itself also shows people lifting weights and going for runs.
Everything the video mentions is good advice. For example, alcohol is bad for your immune system, while vitamin C is good. Carrying excess weight and having preexisting health problems puts you at greater risk of dying from coronavirus, and losing weight can be a way to protect yourself against coronavirus.
Coronavirus is not going away anytime soon. People should get vaccinated, try to live healthier lifestyles, be hygienic, and even choose to wear masks in some settings where they feel it’s appropriate. We’re not going to lock down our way out of this pandemic. However, reducing deaths and hospitalizations is a noble goal and one that every country should strive to achieve.
If leaders such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden, and all 50 governors in the United States spent time talking about these things, the country would be in a better position to handle the pandemic. Biden has been guilty of plagiarism before. Perhaps he can copy this good advice El Salvador has to offer so more Americans see it.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
