It is Time to Dispel COVID19 Myths
While the world is making all out efforts to contain covid only,Pakistan is thrust upon with cumbersome task of fighting with, and fixing the two pandemics _ covid 19 and myths attached to vaccination.
COVID 19 myths are as old as is the pandemic .Misinformation, misconceptions and myths spread like a wild fire thanks to digital devices and social networking sites like the Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger etc.Myths surrounding the pandemic called COVID 19 are doing rounds since its birth in Wuhan,a city of China .
Sometimes, an iceberg of misinformation becomes bigger than reality thanks to no monitoring mechanism and and its negative impact looms large over multitudes of population.The case in point is the myths of covid19 vaccines.The first myth about COVID 19 in Pakistan came from the corridors of power, with the PM Imran Khan calling it a common flu, needing no worries and requiring no precautionary measures.
Whereas an army of federal ministers in conjunction with advisors following in the footsteps of the PM, downplayed the dangers of the pandemic having declared that drinking hot water and the hot weather could kill the cronavirus.The problem of the PM and some of his cabinet ministers is that of being Clever Dicks. However, the climbing curve of the COVID 19 , timely COVID containment strategy presided over by the Sindh government as well as the concerns convincingly conveyed by the frontline fighters i.e doctors built public pressure on the federal government to grasp the gravity of corona crises. Thus the PTI Ied government’s myopia acommpanied by casual attitude had culminated in crises.The rest is history needing no comment.
Myths continue to be churned out in our country .These initially revolved around the reality i.existence of the disease that there was no such a disese called COVID 19.
Mature ctizens who had prioritised protective measures like the wearing of a mask, avoiding handshake, and ensuring social distancing were subjected to both mockery and tauntings. They say to be sensible is to suffer in a society like ours.
The flourishing fiction after the pandemic made its footprint in Pakistan, was that the sick people visting government hospitals and corona treatment centres, were injected to death and declared to be corona patients because the government was receiving amount in dollars from the global world on every COVID casualty.
This fear factor had deepened to the level that people with minor health issues avoided visiting the hospitals as a result the number of OPD patients dropped. And people with corona symptopms refused to be COVID tested .Such a propaganda lost it steam after the disease in question started devouring lives and hospitals became choked off with those suffering from whose very existence was denied .
After the pandemic has dawned upon the population, now myths are revolving around the COVID vaccines being administered to the masses.
Major Myhs surrounding the pandemic vaccine are:
- Sterilization (castration -infertility)
- Pigs ‘urine
- Diminishing sexual desire.
- An electronic chip to monitor
- Magnetic field
- Vaccinated area producing an electric current
A literature proliferated vociferously by the way of social media that since the government’s population control programme has gone down like a lead so the vaccines being administered to Pakistanis was aimed at making people infertilte in order to diffuse population bomb.Some others came forward with the idea of countries producing vaccines being supplied to Pakistan ,are being filled with Pig’s urine because those producer countries are intoxicated with hate of Muslims.And the recent videos went viral showing the vaccinated area becoming magnetic catching magnets; in an other video ,a bearded man could be seen showing a lightening bulb once it touched the area where vaccine had been administered. These fictitious stories being fed to the population do not end here.
One of the recipients living in my town who had received first doze, complained to close friends that his sexual desire_power had decreased to considerable degree. This actually steamed from minted myths one is hearing from here and there. This both unfound and unscientific side effect attached to vaccine, discouraged some others who had shown their willingness after much persuasion to be vaccinated.A hoax -false news attributed to a Nobel laureate was the last straw that broke camel’s back: that those vaccinated, would die within two years.
A common hastag has cropped up in friends group that is: Vaccinated? You are no more with us after two years!
Negative propaganda against the vaccination being discussed has brought in its wake, disillusionment, discouragement and depression. A recent revealing report published in Dawn newspaper (8 June) should be an eye opener for all of us. According to the news and data made available by NCOC, around 300,000 people have failed to return to receive the second dose after receiving their first dose since the start of the vaccination drive on Feb.5.” Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), was quoted to have said, a call centre was being established to contact such people and convince them to complete their vaccination.
This declining trend of being vaccinated speaks volumes about the population falling prey to mythological considerations. In order to navigate the nation from rough waters called COVID myths calls for an urgent public engagement /awareness.
In order to materialize this ,a team of speciaslists comprising epidemiologists and other viral and blood diseases experts should be tasked with the responsibility of building a counter narrative against covid myths with specialists giving their academic input through TV Talk-shows ,conferences, proliferation of literature to be published in national newspapers especially read in rural Pakistan.The majrority lives in rural areas ,this majority being illiterate is more prone to propaganda being highlighted.
TV channels should, for the time being, replace political Talk-shows with COVID vaccines myths removing programmes by inviting professional people from medical field.Doctors should also be tasked to make short videos negating COVID vaccine fiction and uploading the same on social media sites. Opinion makers also shoudl educate the citizens through their write-ups that COVAC( covid vaccine) has nothing to do with myths attached to it.The masses shoud be educated that there is no scientific evidence available suugesting such side effects myth mongerers have circulated .The vaccine only boots our body defense ie immunity system enabling us to defeat the enemy called coronavirus.
As the pandemic poses an existential threat to lives and means of bread and butter, so myth mongering of vaccine and sharing of the same on social media or any other platform be declared punishable offense.The cyber crime wing should be activated to trace and catch those weaving vaccine myths into the psyche of society.Such an action is urgently needed in order to build a dam against fiction fomenting both unfound and scientific fears resulting in unwillingness to be vaccinated
What we need to realise is that the pandemic has turned the world upside down and Pakistan in no exception.People have lost their loved ones and livelihoods all over the world .Various developing economies are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy following businesses shut downs , unemployment and poverty.
The United Nations’s International Labour Organisation Director General recently revealed that “the working experiences of this pandemic for some have been of inconvenience, tedium, stress and frustration. For others it has been about fear, poverty and survival “.
Reportedly, the current pandemic is said to have killed 3.8million all over the globe.
And 21,376 have succumbed to ongoing cronavirus in Pakistan .The active cases as high as 935,013 in our country.
The cronavirus has waged a war against us.
We are in the battlefield, the enemy is threatening to take more lives and livelihoods, deterrence in this war lies in divorcing this Hamlet like dilemma “To be or not be vaccinated caused by myths. What my dear country men need to realise is that there is no other way out than tracing patients, testing them and mass vaccination.An acknowledgement is due for the federal govt for making centralised registration of Covid vaccines, and the federating units establishing vaccination centres at taluka and UCs level in order to facilitate the population.This doorstep facility provided needs to be capitalised before it is too late. A greater responsibility is placed on the shoulders of mine, the readers, media and state to educate the society about the importance of immunisation programme prioritised to prevent the pandemic.
Corna crises are a national issue hence vaccine myths doing rounds, can be broutht to an end with collective wisodom and responsibility. We have to educate our dear countrymen that renouncing the use of reason in the current covidised enivorment will prove to be suicidal.It has to be kept in mind that we have to fight with the two pandemics – one is the covid19, and other one is myths of covid vaccines launched by unscrupulous individuals; the former can be fixed with the vaccination and the latter with rationality. Sanity demands to be dertermined to receive the second dose and to register for the first doze.
We have to reach out to vaccination centres before we are are brought to hospitals and put on ventilators.
