Getting ready
The CommunityFirst COVID-19 Roadmap is a planning tool to support communities to organize, prepare and sustain their responses to COVID-19.
Learn to use the Roadmap
- Follow the steps in the Roadmap to create a plan for your community
- Download the Action Plan and use it as:
- an outline to develop your plan
- a checklist to track your progress
- Add or remove steps as relevant to your community
- Review the resources in every step to see infographics, guides and community action examples
- Use the Resource Database to search for additional materials
Review customized CommunityFirst COVID-19 plans and adapted Roadmaps
Appoint a CommunityFirst COVID-19 Committee
- Establish the priorities of the committee and agree on the roles of its members
- Designate individuals (or sub-committees) responsible for the following areas:
- Communications
- Coordination with health authorities and humanitarian actors
- High-risk and vulnerable groups
- Hygiene kits and PPE
- Mental health
- Vaccine awareness
- Create a virtual group for the committee
Organize
1. Are there COVID-19 cases:
- In your country?
- Focus on ORGANIZE
- Near your community?
- Focus on PREPARE
- In your community?
- Focus on RESPOND
2. Identify resources, knowledge and skills within the community
- Medical and psychological personnel
- Traditional medicine
- Crafts: e.g. textiles (for masks), soap-making
- Community spaces
- Communication platforms: radio, social network groups, loudspeakers
- Community networks
- Food and water, sanitary materials
4. Protect your community
- Monitor travel in and out of the community
- Screen newcomers for the presence of symptoms and recent contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19
- Refer anyone with symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and/or a positive contact history for evaluation, preferably by a healthcare professional
- Designate individuals able to leave the community to get essential items.
5. Identify high-risk and vulnerable groups
- High-risk:
- Elders and older people
- Immunocompromised people
- E.g. people with cancer (especially if undergoing chemotherapy)
- People with comorbidities, especially:
- Chronic kidney disease
- Chronic lung disease
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Hypertension
- Obesity
- Tuberculosis
- Vulnerable:
- Indigenous peoples
- LGBTQ+
- Migrants
- Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence
- People in detention
- People living with HIV/AIDS
- People experiencing homelessness
- People who use drugs
- People with disabilities
- Women and girls
- Youth
6. Communicate COVID-19 information
- Raise awareness about symptoms, prevention and mental wellness
- Combat myths, stigma and rumours
- Use infographics, radio and social media groups
- Prioritize communications to high-risk groups
- Work with local influencers
- Translate into local languages
See additional resources on health promotion
8. Provide food and essential items
- Support a local store(s) to remain open for food and essential items
- Assemble and deliver food baskets for vulnerable people
- Provide hygiene kits containing masks, soap and disinfectant
- Make a list of essential community services
9. Supply water and sanitation
- Encourage frequent hand-washing.
- Increase access to hand-washing stations and soap
- If water is limited, develop local alternatives
- Maintain waste management systems
Prepare
1. Review health measures
- Stay up-to-date with national and local health authorities’ COVID-19 responses and vaccine roll-out plans
- Ensure that gaps are filled
- Identify any new gaps
2. Secure Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Provide PPE for all community workers.
3. Train COVID-19 community workers
- Provide training in:
- Health promotion
- Case detection
- Infection Prevention and Control (IPC)
- Contact tracing
- Psychosocial support
- Where possible, train community workers to do virtual community health work.
4. Support high-risk and vulnerable groups
- Ensure people with comorbidities can get treatment and support
- Provide food and essential items
- Support mental health and wellbeing
See Resource Database for resources to support specific high risk and vulnerable groups:
5. Adapt community life to respect health protocols
- Adapt public spaces and workplaces
- Adapt weddings, funerals, burials, religious services and other community gatherings
- Favour gatherings outside with mask-wearing and physical distancing
- Support safe protesting
6. Equip community members
- Encourage mask-wearing, frequent hand-washing and physical distancing
- Encourage people to increase ventilation by opening windows
- Provide hygiene kits to each household with essential supplies
- Offer tips to prevent and recover from infection at home
- Provide information on when to seek in-person medical attention
- Support parents and caregivers with young children
7. Prepare isolation/quarantine
- Prepare homes for isolation of household members with COVID-19
- Repurpose community spaces to isolate people with COVID-19 (e.g. schools, hotels and churches)
8. Mobilize community assets
- Use community resources, knowledge and skills for COVID-19 prevention activities: i.e. mask-making, soap-making, outdoor theatre & music
- Mobilize community social networks to foster connection and solidarity
9. Prepare community for COVID-19 vaccine rollout
- Continue to hold information sessions as needed about COVID-19 vaccines
- Combat myths, stigma and rumours related to COVID-19 vaccines
- Ensure healthcare workers and high-risk groups have priority access to vaccines
- Share information about where and when vaccination will take place and how community members can sign up
- Include information about the 2nd dose as required
Respond
2. Detect COVID-19 cases
- Create a virtual alert network
- Train community workers to conduct COVID-19 screenings
- Refer people whose screenings are positive to the health centre for clinical evaluation and testing
- Prioritize PCR/antigen testing for essential workers and vulnerable populations
3. Isolate suspected COVID-19 cases
- Suspected cases should isolate at home or in a designated isolation centre
- Suspected cases must keep physically distant and wear a mask at all times
- Anyone in direct contact with a suspected case must wear a mask
- Provide support for people in isolation
Quarantine and Isolation in a Shared Living Space
Johns Hopkins centre for American Indian Health
InfographicHow to care for someone at home during COVID-19
Johns Hopkins centre for American Indian Health
Guide4. Trace contacts
- Advise all contacts of each case (suspected* or confirmed) to quarantine in line with local public health guidelines
5. Keep up prevention measures
- Continue to encourage mask-wearing, frequent hand-washing and physical distancing
6. Support mental health and wellness
- Continue to provide resources to support mental health and wellness
- Ensure access to virtual crisis support centres
See the resource database for additional mental health resources
7. Access online health support
- Facilitate access to:
- Psychosocial care
- Clinical follow-up
- Water and sanitation guidance
- Logistics support
Sustain
2. Adjust community protection measures
- Assess whether the community can be open to inter-community travel
- Continue to screen newcomers for symptoms/recent contact with a person with COVID-19
- Refer anyone with symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and/or a positive contact history for evaluation, preferably by a healthcare professional
3. Maintain personal protection
- Avoid poorly ventilated public places
- Encourage mask-wearing, hand-washing and physical distancing
- Evaluate activities by level of risk
- Maintain mental and physical wellness
4. Communicate COVID-19 information
- Use infographics
- Combat myths, stigma and rumours
- Prioritize communications to high-risk groups
- Share key information about COVID-19 vaccines
- Use radio and social media groups
- Translate into local languages
5. Continue to protect high-risk and vulnerable groups
- Prioritize testing
- Support mental health and wellbeing
- Ensure treatment and care for community members with co-morbidities
6. Modify community life
- Adapt workplaces to protect employees
- Adapt public spaces and community gatherings
7. Support mental health and wellness
- Continue providing mental health resources
- Provide psychosocial support to vulnerable groups, those who have lost loved ones, as well as current and former COVID-19 patients (who may have lasting effects or ongoing symptoms)