After the vaccine

The world seems to be in limbo. Although much economic activity has resumed, life feels far different from how we remember it. Many countries that lifted lockdowns thinking the worst of the novel coronavirus had passed are now seeing resurgence in cases. In those that aren’t as yet, fear still lingers. Until there is an effective and proven vaccine, it is likely this dance between Covid-19 decline and resurgence will continue. But even if it does become available, another challenge is already waiting in the wings in the form of ‘anti-vaxxers’.

For developing countries that have yet to eradicate diseases like polio, resistance to vaccines among some groups is nothing new. Since the opposition usually stems from lack of education and religious attitudes, the solution seems to be simpler as well. Far more alarming is the rise of anti-vaxxers in the developed world. A recent report suggested almost half of the United Kingdom’s population would refuse a Covid-19 vaccine when it becomes available. The United States, currently a hub of most vaccine-related conspiracy theories, is likely to fare even worse.

For first-world countries, many view such attitudes as a puzzling anomaly. On paper at least, they don’t deal with conditions that trigger the trend in their developing counterparts. Education, for instance, is much more widely available in the US, the UK and their ilk, even if quality varies. And while it would be wrong to generalise their population as entirely non-religious, religious attitudes there tend to be far more diverse. Ironically, the rise of anti-vaxxers in developed countries, like the rise of the alt-right is a result of ‘too much information’. Not all information is created equal and high Internet penetration has cultivated fertile ground for unfounded conspiracy theories to proliferate.

That said it would be unfair to blame the entire phenomenon on ‘ill-informed masses’. Across the world, inequality is on the rise and with it, so is mistrust of government and authority. Leave it to fester long enough and mistrust of authority begins to incorporate mistrust of expertise. When that happens, the field is left open for charlatans and quacks to appeal to our worst tendencies.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2020.

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