Twin problems: virus mutations, reluctance to vaccinate

Image used for illustration purposes only.

It looks like COVID-19 hasn’t really run its course as it mutated nearly four times with the fourth, with the Delta variant taking more shape as the Delta plus, and raising concerns about whether the vaccine handful that had been developed in less than a year can handle mutations. Doctors and scientists are struggling to stay ahead of the game, so to speak.

There is a demand that sequencing of new strains of the COVID-19 virus should be done quickly to determine the structure of the variants, which then need to be tested against vaccines to ensure that vaccines can effectively neutralize them.

Right now, the assurance of researchers and vaccine experts is that the vaccines we now have on hand have fought the mutated COVID. People infected even after two doses of the vaccine found that the virus was not virulent, that they did not need to be hospitalized, let alone placed in an intensive care unit (ICU) and on a ventilator, than the vaccine protected them from near-mortality. There is no doubt that vaccines will need to be modified to combat the new mutations as they arise, and the researchers are pretty much on their feet.

But there is a bigger problem at hand. Even with vaccines in hand, many countries around the world, and many of them that are categorized as developed, face the social challenge of vaccine reluctance.

From America to Russia to Japan, the plentiful supply of COVID vaccines lie idle as people evade the simple that would provide them and those around them with protection. Even as the Tokyo Olympics deadline draws near, authorities in Japan are puzzled that people are not showing up to get their shots in time for the games.

In Russia, both in Moscow and in remote provinces, authorities are struggling to convince people to get vaccinated. The numbers are slowly increasing and we realize that convincing people on this issue is not a simple task.

In America, it became evident that 99% of the people who died recently were unvaccinated people. But resistance to vaccination has not diminished.

What has been called vaccine hesitation is a sociological enigma. And this can be attributed to ignorance. Robert Pirsig in his cult book from the 1970s, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” observed that although we live in a scientific civilization, we are totally ignorant of science, and there is a fear of science due to ignorance.

It seems people don’t understand how the vaccine helps protect the person from the virus. Maybe no one bothered to explain to people how the vaccine works.

Scientists unwittingly behave like old shamans and tell people that they should take the medicine and it will cure them. It seems that people generally believe in shamans even when they are wrong, but they are unwilling to entertain scientists who speak like shamans. This is indeed the biggest challenge: convincing people that the vaccine is good for them. It takes serious thought to find ways to communicate with people in a way that they understand and feel confident about the good the vaccine is doing.

It is indeed a fact that scientists are not always good communicators. We need people who communicate well and who can convey scientific information to the public. Science communication is something that has been ignored. It’s time to plug the hole.