Editorial | Grab chance for mobilisation against COVID-19

K.D. Knight is right – or mostly so. Politicians, by themselves, are unlikely to have much success convincing hesitant Jamaicans to take COVID-19 vaccines.

Of course, most Jamaicans, including this newspaper, did not really require Mr Knight to articulate the obvious. For, as opinion surveys consistently show, Jamaicans have little trust of politicians and political institutions. For example, Vanderbilt University, in its 2019 biennial survey of attitudes to democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, reported that Jamaicans, with respect to their trust, gave political parties 33.4 points, where 100 is the highest. Parliament fared only slightly better at 35.9 points. Both institutions declined from the previous survey.

So, it is an irony of sorts that K.D. Knight is the convenor of a new group, advocating for policies and programmes for fighting the pandemic, including the take-up of vaccines. Mr Knight is a member of the People’s National Party (PNP), which he represented in the Senate up to last September general election. He previously served as a member of the House of Representatives and as a member of PNP cabinets, holding portfolios for justice, national security and foreign affairs.

It probably makes sense that it is someone like Mr Knight who reminds the species of which he is a member of the low trust level they enjoy and why theirs should not be the only voices, or the most dominant, delivering a pro-vaccine message. That perhaps was not the intention. The poke by Mr Knight is nonetheless useful, and timely, given the administration’s announcement this week of its planned “pivot” on its COVID-19 awareness and vaccination campaign in the face of a new wave of the virus.

WORSENING SITUATION

Up to Wednesday, COVID-19 claimed 1,268 Jamaican lives since the first case was detected here in March 2020. What, however, adds urgency to the rejigged containment strategy is the worsening COVID-19 situation. On Monday, in announcing the administration’s latest initiatives, Prime Minister Andrew Holness noted that in the first half of July, Jamaica, on average, recorded just over 50 new COVID-19 cases daily. That rocketed to nearly 240 in August. Indeed, for the first eight days of this month there were 1,903 cases, compared to 1,572 for all of June, which translates to 331, or 21 per cent, more cases over those eight days, compared to the 30 days of June.

By the middle of this week, the positivity rate from tests for the virus was over 35 per cent, compared to single digits in June. Further, productivity rate, or the velocity of its spread, measured by how many other persons one carrier infects, was heading towards one and a half, when it needs to be below one to halt the advance of the disease.

A worrying addendum to these grim numbers is the fear that despite improved access to vaccines recently, the messages of anti-vaxxers and other vaccine sceptics might take firm hold, undermining the Government’s effort to inoculate at least 65 per cent of Jamaicans, the level it believes is required for herd immunity. There are no jostling crowds at vaccination venues. In this effort to get people to take the jab, the Government is competing not only with an abundance of foreign anti-vaccine messages on social media, but home-grown sceptics, including popular entertainers, some of whom promote spurious interventions or suggest that the virus is a hoax or a plot to eliminate some races or ethnic groups.

Christopher Tufton, the health minister, has said his new strategy will include delivering vaccines where people live and communicating with them via community figures. He especially mentioned local government councillors. Prime Minister Holness promised that he will “hit the roads”, going into “nooks and crannies of Jamaica” with the vaccination message. “In the same way that I went about asking you for your votes, it’s the same way I will be going about asking you to preserve our lives and livelihoods,” he said.

STRONG COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

This plan has this newspaper’s backing – but with more. It echoes, in part, the kind of mobilisation we encouraged at the outset of the pandemic to promote the wearing of masks, physical distancing and regular handwashing as the best way, prior to the advent of vaccines, to keep the coronavirus at bay. But we also insisted on strong community participation and the involvement of national figures of all stripes who people trusted. However, in “hitting the road”, Mr Holness must ensure that it is not the fête style of the last year’s election campaign, which contributed to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

In essence, we called for the kind of national mobilisation that the nationalist movements and the old political Left used to know how to do, but which has been lost to Jamaica since their demise, especially of the latter. It is something akin to a renewal of this spirit we hear in Mr Knight’s admonition that the fight against COVID-19 could be left to the health minister and his opposition counterpart. That is a recipe for squabbling.

Mr Knight is right that radio, shopping centres, tax offices, commercial outlets – anywhere people gather – should be “inundated with positive messages about the efficacy of the vaccine” and that the effort required “the goodwill and voices of a wide range of Jamaicans”.

But a national enterprise, such as proposed, will work best if it’s strongly supported from the top and operates across political fault lines. In the event, Prime Minister Holness has indicated intent. K.D. Knight has provided a bridge, or at least blunted possible opposition to its crossing. Next step: no doubt Prime Minister Holness has, or can get, Mr Knight’s contact details.