Closing message

When we consider pandemics, the coronavirus is not the only virus that has reached global proportions. During the 1940s and ’50s, the polio virus resulted in half a million deaths every year with millions left disabled. Polio has now been eradicated across the world with widespread use of the polio vaccine.

But in certain pockets of Asia, it still thrives due to extreme religious biases against vaccines. Yet, health care workers here form close bonds with parents and community leaders, persuading them to accept the polio vaccine. They thus remain an effective defence in these communities against the virus.

In the past two weeks, you have learned how, as a nurse, you can use data and be a leader to fight a virus. But no Florence Nightingale or Sherry Chen can fight a virus alone, not without the community. [APPLAUSE] So how, as a nurse, do you take the fight from the hospital beds out into the community? And how do you evoke the support of the community and its leaders in the midst of a pandemic? We will soon be returning with a new round of this course with more weeks of content information that may help save lives in your community. So I hope you can join us to learn more about nursing in a pandemic.