The Tribune

A friend in her early 70s is exhausted by COVID-19. No, she has not experienced the physical debilitation or devastation of the disease as have many Bahamians and many millions globally.

She is exhausted, exasperated trying to encourage, cajole, convince and conspire to get family members, friends and associates to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

Like many, she is frustrated by the degree of misinformation and ignorance of basic science and medicine, including the nature of vaccines and the virulence of the disease.

A singular frustration is the inability to convince vulnerable individuals over a certain age, with co-morbidities, including obesity, to take the vaccine. A part of the difficulty is many adults associate vaccines with children and quite a number of adults are afraid and anxious about being vaccinated.

We must continue to invite and to encourage older Bahamians who are hesitant. More are likely to take the vaccine in time in order to travel with ease and as they realise those who have taken the vaccine are not having serious side-effects.

Even as the friend employs rational arguments, including for younger generations, she and many others are up against a Berlin Wall of conspiracies, confusion and contradictions, including a patchwork of erroneous charges:

Bill Gates is using the virus to sell vaccines; COVID is a plot by pharmaceuticals; the virus is the “mark of the beast”; the virus is not that dangerous; vaccines are being used to track citizens; “exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by 5G devices can both cause COVID-19 and increase its severity”, among other wild claims.

In a March 22, 2021, COVID Vaccine Investigative Committee Report, Bahamas Christian Council noted among its conclusions: “There is insufficient theological evidence to support that the COVID-19 vaccine is directly connected to the fulfilment of end-time prophecy relative to the mark of the beast.”

This is somewhat helpful. Yet, by saying there “is insufficient theological evidence”, opens the door to saying the Council simply failed to find the evidence. The truth is there is no theological, rational, medical or scientific evidence as the vaccine has nothing to do with Biblical prophecies.

The friend’s deep-seated frustration to communicate the danger of the virus and the extraordinary benefits of the vaccine – including helping to reduce its transmission and to lessen ill-health and prevent death – is understandable.

While many at home and abroad have a rudimentary understanding of viruses and vaccines, scores do not and are given to wishful and magical thinking. Many are susceptible to emotional and psychological manipulation by conspiracy mongers.

Donald Trump did not invent many of the conspiracies he marketed. But he proved a genius at promoting conspiracies and mocking the COVID-19 virus and life-saving public health measures such as masks.

Curiously, many Bahamians who cannot abide Trump, have fallen for the COVID conspiracies he helped to promote, even as he and his wife privately took a vaccine before leaving the White House.

History

A further irony: many of those who believe they are clever and intelligent because they have adopted the conspiracies, are being duped and are quite ignorant of basic science, including the long medical history behind COVID-19 vaccines.

By example, ask most Bahamians and Americans spouting anti-vaccine conspiracies and other anti-scientific memes about CRISPR technology and you will get a blank, confused stare.

There is even more irony. The very same people who giddily use their cell phones to perpetuate and peddle anti-scientific memes and conspiracies seem blithely ignorant of the tremendous technological and scientific advances that have gone into the design of their mobile devices and computers.

A female colleague recalled a conversation with a female friend who uses a certain birth control pill. The latter says she has not yet decided whether to take a vaccine because of the extremely low possibility of a blood clot.

When informed that she was more likely to develop a blood clot from her birth control regimen than the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine she went silent. She hadn’t fully considered that possibility.

Quite a number of people are vaccine-hesitant because of social and peer pressure from those around them who are also not taking the vaccine.

Many young people believe they will look silly or foolish in front of peers if they admit to taking the vaccine, especially given the belief widely by friends that COVID-19 is a vast conspiracy.

The advent of social media has made it press-button easy to spread conspiracies and to more easily manipulate human psychology and its admixture of superstition, emotionalism and religious fundamentalism.

The added delight from social media is how the endless pings, memes and conspiracies provide an emotional and dopamine fix for those addicted to Facebook, Tik Tok and WhatsApp.

Those trying to convince the hesitant to take vaccines should take cues from advertisers, social marketing experts and social media companies who understand sociology and social psychology.

Just as mass advertising utilises incentives and peer pressure to get us to part with our money, governments and others will have to use carrots, sticks and other measures to convince citizens to take vaccines in order to promote herd immunity.

In Washington DC, an advocacy group launched “Joints for Jabs” to encourage residents to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The group is handing out a free marijuana joint to those who can prove they have been vaccinated.

It is a “high-end” initiative, which cannot be replicated in The Bahamas, though one imagines that such a cannabis treat might induce some to temporarily suspend their conspiratorial conceits and take the vaccine.

Attempting to utilize reasonable and rational arguments with huge swaths of a population will only get one so far. Indeed, the more one promotes rational scientific arguments with some, the more likely that such an approach will fail and the more entrenched an individual will become.

Irrational

By example, the presentation of facts to many Trump supporters often results in them doubling down in their beliefs no matter how irrational or conspiratorial. Facts and science have limited currency for scores of human beings.

Emotions and misinformation that verify and affirm one’s beliefs, often trump reason. More information given begets even more resistance and recalcitrance. Reportedly, many Haitians are seeking to return to Haiti from The Bahamas because they have heard that there is little to no COVID-19 in Haiti.

The official statistics on COVID-19 in Haiti are generally low because the country notoriously under-reports health statistics because the system of reportage is extremely weak in a country where the state lacks the capacity for such reporting.

Yet, quite a number of Haitians who are living through COVID-19 in The Bahamas, with various restrictions and active reporting, believe there is little incidence of the virus and the disease in the country of 11 million.

While they are wrong about the facts, it is highly unlikely they will be convinced otherwise. Before some Bahamians get on their high horse, doesn’t this antipathy toward facts sound familiar?

It should, because many Bahamians, including some with tertiary degrees, live in their own bubbles of ignorance about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Bush or herbal medicines are useful for various health purposes. But they are not preventatives or curatives for COVID-19.

On the Indian Ocean island nation of Madagascar, President Andry Rajoelina widely promoted an untested and unproven herbal concoction, COVID-Organics, which was touted and marketed as a remedy for COVID-19.

He did so even as hospitals in the country struggled with a surge of cases “despite the World Health Organization (WHO) warning against using untested remedies.”

The President famously and incorrectly declared: “The epidemic won’t last, it’s only passing through and we will defeat it.”

The BBC reported: “The WHO says it welcomes innovations based on traditional remedies but it wants scientific evidence before backing their use. … So far no results of clinical trials have been made public – though that has not stopped the tonic from becoming a source of African pride for some.”

Human nature is such that most of us act based on personal experience. We are often incapable of imagining beyond our circumstances or lived experience. Because The Bahamas has not experienced the mass death of countries like some in Europe, Brazil, India, Mexico and other jurisdictions, most Bahamians do not grasp the scope of this great pandemic.

Many in The Bahamas believe their refusal to take a vaccine is reasonable because they deem the chances of contracting COVID-19 or becoming gravely ill or dying are low. Many others in the world believed they too were being reasonable, until the virus exploded, killing loved ones and inducing long-term effects.

While there was hesitancy in some quarters in India about taking a vaccine, the season of dying that is gripping and ravaging India has resulted in many of the hesitant and the unsure now coming forward to receive a vaccine. Death concentrates the human mind and will.

If the Government of The Bahamas announced that it had received vaccines to prevent or dramatically diminish the effects of HIV/AIDS and was setting up centres for distribution, it is likely that on day one it would have to utilize the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium, Fort Charlotte, Atlantis and Baha Mar, given the likely demand.

We are nearing the end of those who will take the vaccine based on rational persuasion. The reluctant will have to be incentivized and convinced through other measures.

The mountain Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan has a population of approximately 760,000. Within 16 days the country vaccinated 93 percent of its adult population. Most countries, including The Bahamas, do not enjoy this level of communitarian spirit or respect for authority.

Thankfully, because we are a small country, we can reach herd immunity and move to the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic within a relatively short period if there are sufficient vaccines and if more Bahamians and residents are willing to be vaccinated.

Additional vaccines are reportedly on the way. But the question is whether more of us will come forward out of self-interest and the common good. The proverbial jury is out. It may not be able to report for some time. Its final verdict is still in question.