The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the majority of lives to a halt. Businesses have reduced operations and everyday living has become limited to ‘essentials only’. While a large number of individuals have switched to working remotely, there is a unique section of people that continues to work selflessly in order to serve the community. These are the people at the frontline – healthcare and medical professionals, firefighters, emergency responders, and police force. They risk their health, safety, and families, work countless hours and provide an invaluable service on a daily basis, all so that we can fight the pandemic and live in a relatively chaos-free environment.
The Situation
These are turbulent times for all of us. However, while many of us are fortunate enough to spend time in quarantine acquiring new skills, and practicing self-care, those working at the frontline are experiencing the exact opposite. They are, quite literally, putting their lives on hold to deal with this crisis.
The Challenges
A report published by GIMBE, Italy’s Group for Evidence-based Medicine, showed that as of 18th March 2020, over 2,600 healthcare professionals were infected with the coronavirus in Italy. In China, 3.8% of the total infected cases were medical workers. Out of 40,000 coronavirus cases in Spain, 14% belong to the medical field.
In the UK, all 48,000 firefighters and other rescue service teams are receiving training to drive ambulances and deliver medicine and food, to support communities during this outbreak, in addition to continuing and prioritizing their main responsibilities. In London, retired police officers are being requested to return to the workforce and support the NHS during the pandemic as 1 in 5 police officers are either infected with the virus or are in mandatory self-isolation.
The frontline workers’ mental health is also highly affected due to the pressure and demand for their work during the pandemic. A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that out of 1,257 Chinese healthcare workers for COVID-19 patients, 50% are experiencing symptoms of depression, 45% are experiencing anxiety, 34% are experiencing insomnia and 71.5% are experiencing psychological stress.
The world is coming together to fight this pandemic, however, the realities of the frontline workers are very different from that of ours. They are constantly facing unparalleled challenges in their personal and professional lives, and deserve to be acknowledged, appreciated and rewarded for their priceless contributions to our society.
How We Can Help
As a humble gesture of appreciation, we are offering access to Cudoo Pro (800+ online courses) for free for a whole year to all frontline workers including healthcare and medical professionals, firefighters, emergency responders, and police officers worldwide. We want to be able to provide them with free and easy access to learn something new with the opportunity to develop their skills so they come out of this situation strong.
Moreover, acquiring new skills also has many advantages that surpass professional growth alone. For instance, learning a new language (Cudoo has 160+ languages) is said to be an excellent method to improve your mental health. Benefits such as expanding your cultural horizons, enabling you to make connections with different people and improving cognitive abilities or simply planning for a well-deserved vacation somewhere new are just some of the reasons as to how language learning improves mental health.
Cudoo’s library of online course topics ranges from Rare Languages and Accounting and Finance, Entrepreneurship, Health and Wellness, Human Resources to Lifestyles, such as effective decision making and basic computer skills. By providing frontline workers with access to free online courses, we hope to give them the chance to take some time out of their hectic schedule and focus on their own wellbeing. After all, it’s important to help yourself before you can help others.
So, if you happen to come across a frontline worker during our fight against COVID-19, please thank them for putting our lives before theirs.
Andrie Steliou
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