Basil Jarrett | Communicating around COVID

The news coming out of our hospitals and healthcare facilities in the last few weeks has been grim. Record-breaking new cases, rising positivity rates, more and more deaths, and fewer and fewer available hospital beds. Not to be outdone by the actual pandemic, the Covid Infodemic and its abundance of misinformation and disinformation has also hit record highs. Whereas the Delta variant has taken the blame for the pandemic spike, it is, ironically, the prescribed antidote that has pushed the COVID chatter to new heights. Last week, the announcement of a mandatory vaccine requirement for children to return to school was met with both applause and derision. Advocates of either armed themselves with their weapons of mass misinformation and proceeded to wage war across social media, Zoom meetings and backyard fences. Regardless of where you stand in this conflict, one thing is for sure: the first casualty of this battle is truth. More specifically, objective truth; that is, something that is true for everyone, whether they believe it or not.

MORE THAN A MEDICAL PROBLEM

I have long said that science is only one part of the solution to defeating the COVID pandemic. The other equally important part is communication. Long before COVID arrived here in March last year, Government and health officials worldwide have struggled to find persuasive ways to communicate with the public around issues such as how COVID originated, how it is spread, how it is prevented, and how deadly it really is. Two years later, many of the falsehoods and myths have been debunked, but the cacophony of misinformation is still very much present. Confusion still abounds, only this time the subject matter has changed. And perhaps no subject matter is more contentious or more confusing than that of the vaccines. Now, caveat emptor, I am not a scientist, doctor nor infectious diseases expert. My ‘C’ in O level biology is the closest I’ve come to such a claim. What I do know, however, is that the COVID pandemic has long since evolved from being purely a scientific or medical problem, now occupying equal space in debates about race, human rights and politics. All of these elements have muddied the water so much, that it is nearly impossible to create a sterile environment for a conversation on COVID vaccines to occur. In such a setting, journalists, politicians, bad actors, scientists, community leaders, pro- and anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and, yes, credible experts vie to capture the hearts and minds of a broad audience of fence sitters and the uncommitted. Having been involved in some of these painful thumb wars myself, it is clear to me that if we are to reduce vaccine hesitancy and ultimately defeat COVID, then we must change the communications around the virus, and, more specifically, around the vaccine.

THE MESSENGER

A good place to start is the source; the medium is the message, after all. On the matter of vaccines for children, for example, greater care must be taken to ensure that the persons dominating the conversation and the information environment are the actual specialists in the field, namely, the paediatricians and infectious disease experts. Doctors, for obvious reasons, are one of the most credible, trusted and recognised groups in any conversation on COVID, and more must be done to give them a platform to speak. So, too, the scientists and epidemiologists who have made a long career of studying and defeating pandemics and other infectious-disease outbreaks.

HONESTY

There also needs to be an admission of uncertainty in communicating around COVID. Knowledge changes so rapidly that yesterday’s fact is today’s fiction, and one’s credibility can be lost literally overnight. We must be very careful, therefore, to manage expectations by acknowledging what scientists and policymakers know and don’t know, as well as the facts surrounding the vaccine’s efficacy and adverse reactions. Instead of promising that the vaccine will end the pandemic, for instance, it may be more useful to show how vaccination slows the spread of the virus and gives the healthcare system breathing room to recover, while buying more time for scientists to develop better, more effective solutions. The question, “Why mandate me to take a vaccine that doesn’t work?” is often the trigger of a day-long Whats App group battle, which only ends when someone’s battery dies.

BALANCE

Another important shift that needs to happen is the recognition that people often modify their behaviours to copy what they see others doing, especially those who they hold in high regard. Messaging around COVID vaccines, from both official and unofficial sources, tends to focus on the negatives, such as vaccine hesitancy and persisting anti-vaccine sentiment, which can actually make the whole problem worse. By focusing too much attention here, we may be unwittingly giving the impression that hesitancy is more persistent than it really is. A reasonable person may then ask, “If so many people are vaccine-hesitant, why am I standing in line to take it?” Focusing instead on the high turnout rates, the positive vaccination experience, and the feeling of peace of mind that comes with being vaccinated may be much more effective in changing attitudes and behaviours. This is not to be misinterpreted as a call to manipulate the media, or to promote a falsehood. Rather, it is a recognition that there needs to be a greater balance between the good and the bad news that is reported, liked or shared. Another issue is the common mistake that many persons make in assuming that all decisions are made based on logic. Such persons will resort to using fear as a logical motivation; for example, “If you don’t take the vaccine you will catch COVID and die.” Such an appeal sounds rational on the surface, but it may elicit an emotional response whereby people tune out and disengage out of fear. And because both traditional and social media are guilty of pushing fear as a motivator, the volume of negative news can be so overwhelming that people can lose confidence, or faith, in the science or the message altogether. Hope, on the other hand, is a more balanced appeal, especially given that we are dealing with a pandemic with many uncertainties. By demonstrating how COVID hospitalisations, especially for the vaccinated, are falling, there is a visible benefit for persons to derive. Hope helps to give a more balanced picture and a better vision of a post-COVID society, and encourages persons to stay engaged in the fight. Similarly, persons may be more moved to encourage or endorse vaccinations if they hear more about what a fully vaccinated society could look like, as opposed to what will happen if we don’t vaccinate.

Ultimately, a vaccine is only as good as the persons who take it. In pretty much the same way that we have taken great care and deliberation to create a COVID vaccine, we need to now take a similarly methodological approach to the other half of the equation - communicating and persuading persons to take the jab. And as the conversation shifts to the issue of vaccines for our children, that communications environment now needs to be even cleaner, clearer, and infinitely more sterile than what we’ve seen so far.

Major Basil Jarrett is a communications strategist and CEO of Artemis Consulting. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com; basiljarrett.artemis@gmail.com.