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We were coughing before it went viral - new campaign sheds light on life with cystic fibrosis, and its similarities to living with COVID-19
Our new campaign, CFTruths, recently launched to help increase the public’s understanding of cystic fibrosis. This comes from a new YouGov poll that we recently carried out, which showed that 86% of people do not know that people with CF cannot meet in person, due to the risk of passing on potentially deadly infections to each other.
The campaign was devised by Caitlin Rich, a former graduate at Ogilvy health who has cystic fibrosis and was struck by how life under lockdown for her was very similar to the precautions she takes normally in her everyday life.
“I realised that we could draw on many more parallels between living in the pandemic and living with cystic fibrosis:, social distancing from others with CF, fear of catching a dangerous infection, restrictions on socialising and travelling… it has always been difficult to get people to understand what it is like to live with CF, but this campaign might help by relating it to our universal experience of the pandemic. Of course, both COVID-19 and CF are much more than what is captured in the snappy headlines – but when you delve deeper, we’re really comparing one serious, life-limiting disease to another serious, life-limiting disease.” Caitlin Rich
Lockdown gave people an insight into what living with cystic fibrosis is like, because of the challenges of keeping apart from loved ones when the 2m rule was implemented. Our new campaign therefore highlights that people with CF have “always had to social distance” from one another, and were “coughing before it went viral”. With COVID-19 restrictions coming to an end, we are hoping that by more people becoming aware of the condition, people with CF can be better supported.
Visit https://www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk/cftruths to find out more