THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND EVERYDAY LIFE: THE RELATIONS OF LOCKDOWN, SOCIAL DISTANCING, FACE MASKING, DISCREET SALUTATION AND HAND HYGIENE IN NIGERIA

This paper provides a contextual discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent reality of taken-for-granted nuances using the epistemology of everyday sociology. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global disease that has virtually affected all facets of life. Nigerian government has moved swiftly to curb the pandemic through containment protocols of lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene. As social actors continue to interact amid the pandemic, they construct and reconstruct the world around them through the social interpretations and contextual meanings derived from these containment protocols. The taken-for-granted nuances and meanings embedded in these micro interpretations allow social actors to take interpretive actions based on the meanings attached to COVID-19 pandemic and the containment protocols.


Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has unarguably emerged as a disease of global phenomenal impact in the 21 st Century. Countries and citizens are affected across continents and cultures; and the health systems of many countries are overwhelmed. The greatest concerns on the COVID-19, especially in its early stages, were its novelty among the strains of Corona viruses and its capacity to rapidly spread across territories and peoples (Wang, Horby, Hayden andGao, 2020, Rothan andByrareddy, 2020). Nobody is immune or totally protected from COVID-19, and in short, the whole of the 7 billion population of the planet earth is potentially exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic. This explains the reason for the containment protocols of lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene that have been adopted across countries, with a corresponding huge impact on everyday social relations and reality due to corresponding relational interpretations. 5 Since the diagnosis of the index case in Nigeria in the last days of February 2020, COVID-19 cases in the country has rapidly increased with confirmed cases more than 11,000 by the first week of June 2020 (Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, 2020a) 6 . This represents an exponential increase within a space of three months. It is however important to note that those numbers are only confirmed cases. Nigeria has tested 69,801 people as at 3 June 2020 (see Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, 2020b). With a population of over 200 million, more than 80 million of whom live in poor conditions that make them vulnerable to contracting the novel corona virus, there is every possibility that COVID-19 cases are more than reported. Nigeria implemented lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene as pandemic containment protocols, shortly after the index case was announced and dozens of other cases were reported in Lagos and Abuja. It is important to note that, based on observations and media reports, compliance to these protocols has been varied from firm to loose across the length and breadth of Nigeria. For example, while Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Rivers and Kaduna states enforced strict lockdowns, most other states only implemented dusk-to-dawn curfews. The campaigns for social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene have been intensified across the nation. Within this short period of Nigeria's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the containment protocols have emerged as new realities of everyday life. This research, therefore, utilizes the epistemology of everyday sociology, to examine the taken-for-granted everyday relational realities of lockdown and movement restrictions, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene in the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria.
In the last 100 years, there have been cases of corona virus outbreaks. The Great Flu of 1918-1920 that happened just after World War 1 with over 50 million deaths, had the greatest impact among the major disease outbreaks reported in the 20th Century (Lima and Sobral, 2020). Between the years 2002 and 2014, there were reported cases of the Avian Flu (H5N1), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) (Otter, Donskey, Yezli, et al 2016). The H5N1, SARS and MERS were quickly contained before they reached pandemic proportions. There were reported cases of H5N1 in poultry in Nigeria, but no human cases were confirmed (Oluwayelu, Meseko, Ayinmode et al 2020). The SARS and MERS were not reported in Nigeria. However, Ebola, another highly contagious disease was reported in Nigeria in July 2014. There were a total of 20 cases and 8 deaths due to Ebola in Nigeria (Ogoina, 2016). Prior to its entry into Nigeria, Ebola had ravaged the West African states of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea leading to more than 11 thousand deaths. The report of the index case of Ebola in Nigeria effected the immediate new consciousness for temperature checking in public places, a check on hand shaking and enhanced hand hygiene among Nigerians (Ogoina 2016). Whereas, schools were shut, there were no movement restrictions or lockdowns. It is important to note, that the Ebola epidemic somewhat enhanced an initial consciousness of pandemic reality in the 21st Century among Nigerians. The containment protocols adopted for Ebola quickly fizzled out after Nigeria was declared free of the disease. The emergent relations due to COVID-19 have reignited the consciousness and relational practice of pandemic containment measures once again.
The Infectious Diseases Centre, Lagos (IDC-Lagos) played a major role in the treatment of Ebola cases and its containment. The same IDC-Lagos, received the first sets of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria. The IDC-Lagos is the model centre for COVID-19 management in Nigeria and has played a leading role in the containment of the pandemic. Unlike the Ebola outbreak, COVID-19 has had a greater impact. The social consciousness of COVID-19 and its recommended containment protocols are increasingly embedded in the social fabric and taken-for-granted everyday social relations and reality in Nigeria. This is not to say that the protocols have been strictly followed. However, the impacts of the COVID-19 protocols are ingrained in everyday actions and strategies as Nigerians respond to the realities of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This paper has 6 major sections. The first section provides the introduction. The second section discusses the epistemology of everyday sociology in the explanation of pandemic reality while the third section presents the methodology. The fourth section presents observational reflections on the COVID-19 containment protocols implemented in Nigeria, the fifth section discusses the findings and the sixth section provides the conclusion.

Everyday Sociology in a Pandemic Reality
The COVID-19 pandemic has once again affirmed the position that actors construct and reconstruct their social beings through the meanings they construct out of social interactions and reality (Harvey 2016, Ciocănel, Lazăr, Munch, et al, 2018. Human beings have experienced bouts of the corona virus strikes from time immemorial. Interpretations attached to the different strains of the corona virus have differed from mild to severe based on the disease epidemic--pandemic and actors' lived experiences. The interpretations adduced to the Great Flu of 1918-1920, H5N1, SARS, MERS and lately COVID-19 tend more towards the meanings of dangerously severe contagious disease, capable of causing mass morbidity and mortality rapidly. Unlike the Great Flu, which caused massive deaths globally, scientists and medical actors were able to contain the spread of H5N1, SARS and MERS before they could reach pandemic spreads among human populations. Hence, for many actors, the trio of H5N1, SARS and MERS were mere potential threats with limited harm thus far. Many other interacting actors outside the research and biomedical communities have little or no knowledge of these strains of the corona virus and they make limited meaning to their realities. The COVID-19 pandemic has reached a stage of global consciousness akin to the Great Flu of 1918-1920, though not yet, at the same degree of morbidity and mortality rates. Information and Communication Technology, and news and social media have no doubt aided the quick spread of the information about COVID-19, even in poor countries, with a direct effect on people's interpretations. 7 The scientific and medical communities have presented COVID-19 as novel and with no known cure medications and vaccines (Wang, Horby, Hayden andGao, 2020, Rothan andByrareddy, 2020). The global health community as well as the mass and social media continuously reels out global morbidity and mortality rates due to COVID-19, while national governments too have implemented containment protocols, which citizens; as interacting social actors, continually interpret and act on based on the interpretations they construct out of the protocols. Social actors construct their pandemic realities out of the interpretations they make of and from COVID-19 statistics, protocols provided by national governments, international organisations (the World Health Organization, particularly), as well as news and social media. Governments, international organisations, news media and social media, thus, form the nodes of communications from where actors extract, exchange and relationally interpret COVID-19 information. The information extracted and shared, does not itself inform actions; rather, the interpretations constructed out of the information by interacting actors inform the courses of action. Hence, the social dimension of COVID-19 goes beyond scientific and medical statistics, analyses and news put out for dissemination. Rather, the social interpretations constructed by interacting actors inform the contextual shape of the COVID-19 pandemic reality.
Social interpretations and embedded relational actions of the COVID-19 pandemic are still evolving. There is, however, a global consciousness that the pandemic is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Available information also shows that the pandemic has a capability to quickly overwhelm the health sector, health care providers, equipment and medications as cases rise above the bearable levels (Chatterjee, Chatterjee, Kumar andShankar, 2020, Emanuel, Persad, Upshur, Thome, et al, 2020). It is for these reasons that the containment measures of lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene are recommended; implemented and enforced in many nations. These protocols have been implemented by macro structures at global and national governmental levels. Social actors also interpret and respond to the COVID-19 and the containment protocols at the micro levels based on existing interactions with the social and physical environments. This research is, thus, guided by the epistemology of everyday sociology, to particularly, explain the taken-for-granted nuances with embedded meanings to the interpretive understanding of COVID-19pandemic reality in Nigeria.

Methodology
The research adopted a reflexive design to collect and interpret observational and secondary data. The data for this study were gathered through online media sources and everyday observations on COVID-19 containment protocols of lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene in Nigeria. The research secured data from available media sources (including BBC, Aljazeera, Punch Newspaper, Guardian Newspaper, Business Day, Nigerian Tribune, Vanguard Newspaper and Radio Nigeria Ibadan) and observed seemingly innocuous interactions in public environments between March and May 2020without engaging in direct physical contacts with human actors because of the ethics guiding research during pandemic periods (Magnani and Magnani, 2020, Chaudhuri, 2020, Van Bavel, Baicker, Boggio et al, 2020. The observations were done in Ibadan city since COVID-19 containment protocols curtailed inter-city and inter-state travels.

The COVID-19 Containment Protocols and Everyday Relations a) Lockdown
The Federal Government of Nigeria locked-down Lagos and Ogun states, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja on 30 March, 2020 as an early strategy to contain the community transmission of the novel corona virus 89 . Many other states also put in place some forms of movement restrictions, curfews, closure of schools, markets, shops and offices and ban on social and religious gatherings of more than 10-20 people. The guiding philosophy was that: 'viruses do not move, people move viruses'! The lockdown policy was meant to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three territories initially lockeddown were the epicentres of the COVID-19 cases in Nigeria. There were only 131 confirmed COVID cases in Nigeria as at the time of the first announcement of the lockdown on 30 March (see Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, 2020b). Between 30 March and the first week of June, there has been over 8200% increase in confirmed cases to more than 11000. Hypothetically, one could assume that there could have been more if the lockdown was not put in place. However, the mass population do not relate with hypothesis. They relate with emergent, existing and reoccurring situations to construct realities. A major reality constructed out is that the lockdown hurt livelihood and survival. People openly stated that the 'hunger virus occasioned by the lockdown was more deadly than the corona virus' . As the lockdown and curfew negatively impacted economic activities, many people who worked and earned daily income through the informal sector, especially, saw their livelihood adversely affected. Unable to access palliatives, they interpreted the lockdown as punishment and a hunger process that could lead to death (Osinusi, 2020). Coupled with the loss of income, crime rates momentarily increased especially in vulnerable environments (see for example Mbah, 14 April 2020, Lambo, 14 April 2020. Hence, the lockdown was interpreted as a measure that denied the vulnerable class income that was dearly needed for survival, and yet exposed them to insecurity. Lockdown became an unpopular measure enforced by the government; yet, welfare and security were adversely affected. The mass public did not interpret the lockdown and movement restriction as COVID-19 containment measures, but as the 'poor hurting measures' because livelihoods were badly affected and government palliatives were non-available for most of the mass public whose livelihoods were affected by the lockdown.

b) Social Distancing
Social or physical distancing is one of the important preventive measures prescribed and required for containment of COVID-19 globally (Abel and McQueen, 2020). In Nigeria, emphasis on social distancing is considered important, as the government both at the Federal and State levels had banned social and religious gatherings that could encourage close contact among people. Some who attempted to have large gatherings and/or parties were strongly condemned and offenders were arrested. All schools, churches, mosques and events centres were closed, and inter-state movements were restricted. These steps were further strengthened by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) standard operating procedures issued out to organisations on social distancing. Observably, many organisations like banks marked out three metres range intervals to ensure social distancing at the banking halls and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) points. While social distancing seems to have been achieved in some corporate settings, the market spaces and the public transport systems do not follow social distancing protocols (Radio Nigeria Ibadan, 2020).
Pre-existing nature of social and cultural relations is such that allows for close physical interactions both in economic and social space structures. For instance, the market space serves as the melting pot of many phenomena, such as whispering of price into ears, sharing of food and drinks, holding of physical economic association meetings in close spaces, hugging and shaking of hands to symbolise friendship and price deals. Ibadan market space accommodates the bulk of informal workers and provides essential food items and other resources to the public. The market spaces are usually densely populated with little or no space for movement without close contacts (Agusi, Ijoma, Nnochin, Njoku-Achu et al, 2020, Radio Nigeria Ibadan, 2020, Omobowale, 2019. This is exemplified in Bodija market, the largest foodstuff market in South-Western Nigeria covering 56.9 hectares and attracting traders and buyers from all over Nigeria and a few countries in the West African coast (Omobowale 2019, Omobowale and Omobowale 2019). Bodija market like other big markets in the Nation, is a critical centre of livelihood and social survival for the people of Ibadan and environs. The market by social ecology and arrangement is densely populated, crowdie and rowdy, such that social distancing is very difficult to achieve in spite of the present reality of COVID-19. It is difficult to have an exact number of traders in Bodija market. However, it is safe to give an estimate of about 5,000 traders and about 15,000-20,000 buyers visit the market every day. The daily human traffic into Bodija market remains huge irrespective of the COVID-19 pandemic. Observably, there is no social distancing practice in place in the market. The market is characterised by people, loads and vehicles/lorries struggling for space and no one observed social distancing, not even a bit, because there was no space for it. Some traders and buyers wore face masks and in their consciousness this refers to social distancing as caution not to be deliberately touched by people. To many traders, social distancing is not possible because social closeness is embedded in day-to-day existence and transactions in the market. In short, social closeness is the heart of the market. Likewise, the pattern of the transport system in Nigeria allows for close contact, despite the physical distance regulations, many vehicles, tricycles and motorcycles still find it difficult to comply.

c) Face Masking
The use of facemask is one of the safety measures recommended by the health experts amid COVID-19 pandemic (Feng, Shen, Xia, et al, 2020, Liu andZhang, 2020). The facemask is meant to protect individuals from spreading and/or contracting the virus through droplets that come out from people during conversations, coughs and sneezes. Initially, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that facemask could be worn only by healthcare workers and sick people, but recently, as the virus continues to grow exponentially, the WHO recommended the need for all people to wear facemasks in public places (BBC News, 2020). However, while the biomedical and clinical purposes of using facemasks are being emphasised, this research observed a taken-for-granted socio-economic dimension to the use of facemasks. It was observed that the production of facemasks has become a source of income for many local tailors and other skilled and semi-skilled people to make some income (see for example Odoh, 2020). These tailors and traders produce facemasks made of local fabrics in large quantity. These fabric masks come as alternatives to medical masks that medical practitioners and surgeon wear in hospital, and are made readily available for people who cannot afford or access medical masks. The fabric face masks are hawked and traded along roadsides and at the entrance of public buildings that refuse entry to people who do not wear masks. Each facemask sells for as little as ₦100-150 ($0.27-0.41). The WHO (2020) described the standardised form of fabric masks that must be used as alternatives to medical masks. These fabric masks must contain three layers -the outer, inner and mid layers. The outer layer should be made up of water resistant fabric; the inner layer has to be water absorbent fabric and the mid layer must contain a filter. Most of the improvised face masks sold on the street do not follow the WHO recommended standard. The researchers bought a few as samples. The samples have only one layer of fabric. The facemasks may thus not provide the protection intended. Such substandard facemasks only provide a symbolic sense of protection for the users, give the users and enforcement agents, a notion of facemask compliance, and provide income for street facemask makers and traders.

d) Discreet Salutation
Salutation is used in everyday interactions through communications to maintain interpersonal relationships (Wei, 2010). Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the mode of greetings has changed, to discreet salutation as much as practicable. The WHO advised against shaking of hands and hugs, which are considered as means through which coronavirus spread. The Nigerian social system is such that relations are tied around informal salutations. Hence, symbolic and innovative ways have been constructed for salutation.
Aside the popularly recommended elbow and feet salutation, symbolic salutary expressions have been created out of the COVID-19 pandemic reality (Ekpu, 2020). Some of such salutations in Yoruba include: 'Aku asiko koro yi o' (greetings in this coronavirus period?), "Bawo ni koro yi lodo yin" (How is this coronavirus in your area?), 'Bawo le se n cope ninu koro yi' (How do you cope in this coronavirus period?). These various forms of corona virus induced salutations have been used to express peoples' feelings, concerns, interpretations and relational reality during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in livelihood difficulties among many people. For instance, 'how do you cope with coro?' is a form of a greeting-question that examines the coping strategy of people in this hardship period. Furthermore, prayers on coronavirus (coro prayers) have been used frequently as a form of salutation in interactional processes amid COVID-19 pandemic. These prayers are used to remind people of their faith and beliefs amid COVID-19 pandemic and have become everyday salutations as people relate together in their daily activities. Prayers frequently used are 'Lagbara Olorun, eje wa' o koro fun koro' (By God's grace, our blood will be bitter for the coronavirus), 'koro o ni rapala wo ile/ede wa o' (Coronavirus will not crawl into our houses/households), and 'A o ni r' ogun coro l' oruko Jesu' (We will not experience coronavirus in Jesus' name).Through these prayers, people create and recreate their meanings and understandings about the coronavirus, as it is interpreted as a demon or spirit (emi koro) that can only be defeated by warfare prayers (see Oyelade, 2017, Oyelade andOmobowale, 2015).

e) Hand Hygiene
Hand hygiene among others has been globally recommended as a vital strategy at containing person-to-person transmission of COVID-19. This includes frequent thorough hand washing with soap and running water, and the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer (see Cavanagh, and Wambier, 2020). Extant reports indicate that about 150 million Nigerians lack access to handwashing facilities (Ewepu, 2020). However, we observed that in many ways, lives of the people in Nigeria have been influenced to have handwashing facilities especially in public places. At home, work places, worship centres, malls, and market places, it has become a common practice to put in place soap and water, usually at the entrance for people to wash their hands as frequent as possible. This has brought about industries, resourcefulness and innovations of various kinds. Notable among others, is the small-scale business of converting buckets and water kegs to hand washing facilities that are reasonably comfortable for public use. There is also the local production and sales of liquid soap by many individuals, although in an unregulated manner. Apart from the production and sales of such items, some individuals have devised special means of livelihood from provision of hand washing facilities, especially soap and water in key locations at public places, and they have patronage from the public. The increased need for regular hand hygiene has resulted in between 100% and 1000% increase in the prices of branded liquid soaps and hand sanitisers (see Onwuzoo, 2020). Hence, there is an increase in the production and sale of unregulated hand sanitisers and soap. This has enhanced the livelihood of sellers, and somewhat made soap and sanitisers affordable, yet, it has not erased the dangers associated with using adulterated and substandard soaps and sanitisers. Also, there are various speculations especially on home remedies and personal protective measures.
One among others is that the local gin (ogogoro, also known as apeteshi) can be used in the absence of hand sanitizers. In fact, some have claimed that drinking the local gin will prevent and/or cure COVID-19 infection. The use of local gin is, thus used for the production of alcohol-based hand sanitizer, and some people have cultivated the habit of using it to wash their hands, and even drinking it with the belief that it kills the coronavirus (see Onwuzoo, 2020). In Nigeria, as it is globally, hand hygiene has become a practice either for the fear of, or as personal protection from COVID-19 infection (see Singhal, 2020). Some wash their hands from to time to time; and some go about with hand sanitizers in their pockets so that they use it as often as they remember to do so. In many restricted public places like banks, malls, among others, customers' attention is called to washing of hands by designated officials, before allowing them to gain entrance for whatever transaction. Hence, the interpretations imputed to the COVID-19 has evolved hand hygiene as an everyday practice, bringing along with it, the spread of unregulated local production and sale of liquid soap and hand sanitisers despite the associated health hazards.

Further Discussion of Findings
Beyond the biomedical and clinical dimensions of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, the results presented denote a clear-cut subjective understanding of the taken-for-granted socially constructed contexts and nuances embedded in the everyday COVID-19 interpretations as people relate with one another in this difficult period. Thus, it speaks volumes of how social actors construct and reconstruct their entire world as national governments and corporate bodies and organisations advise local and global COVID-19 prevention measures. The social interpretations of COVID-19 protocols including lockdown, social distancing, face masking, discreet salutation and hand hygiene, are emanating from people's daily interaction and through such interpretations, contextual meanings on what these protocols mean, are conveyed.
Undoubtedly, the reality of COVID-19 pandemic and the containment protocols is best understood from the social interpretation and meanings of social actors. Being the targeted audience, such subjective interpretations and meanings, are crucial in understanding the reality of COVID-19 in their own way and in relation to others, which is germane to individual and societal development (Olutayo, 2014). As lockdowns continue across the country, businesses and survival strategies dwindle and the suffering became unbearable, especially for informal workers who survive on daily earnings. Thus, the lockdown policy was not interpreted as one implemented to curb COVID-19, but to expand the 'hunger virus' over the mass poor. What this infers is that, for most people, the lockdown as a containment of COVID-19 is meant to exploit the poor and to further draw them below the poverty line. Hence, successful implementation of and conformity to the lockdown policy is hinged on the contextual meanings and social interpretations of social actors.
Embedded in containment protocols of social distancing and discreet salutation, are also everyday actors' feelings, perceptions and meanings constructed as they interact in the pandemic (Adler, Adler and Fontana, 1987). While social distancing ensures physical distance from two people as they relate together in this pandemic, the social interpretations of social distancing convey more than the ordinary meaning of it, particularly, in market relations. The market is an interactional social space that social actors contest in to make daily living, hence, the possibility of social distancing, is virtually impossible. Social space, in this context, is shaped by human relations and bound by social and cultural rules of embeddedness (see Omobowale, 2019;Omobowale and Omobowale, 2019;Adebayo, Falase and Akintunde, 2017;Zieleniec, 2007). Also, discreet salutation as a form of everyday greetings has evolved as a dimension of an emotional strategy to constructively and interpretively cope with the social realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 'corona' interpretive context has become a domain through which societal members express their feelings, emotions, prayers, perspectives and interpretations on COVID-19 pandemic. Face masking and hand hygiene have also influenced the everyday interactions and reality. The compulsion of the use of facemasks and hand hygiene by the government has created the livelihood opportunities for local producers, yet, this new sector is unregulated and thus standards are not assured.