With COVID-19 vaccines here, cultivating public trust has never been more crucial. What public authorities must fully comprehend is that ensuring such trust not only requires effective messaging and communication, but also open and interactive forms of public engagement.
The risks from misinformation were underscored during the early days of the pandemic by the World Health Organization, which explained that “that infodemics are an excessive amount of information about a problem, which makes it difficult to identify a solution. They can spread misinformation, disinformation, and rumours during a health emergency. Infodemics can hamper an effective public health response and create confusion and distrust among people.”
Vaccines reflect such concerns. In the spring of 2020, Bill Gates found himself on the defensive as his public reflections fueled a conspiracy theory suggesting that his Foundation intended to leverage eventual COVID-19 vaccines as a means of implanting microchips in billions of people. One US survey in May undertaken by Yahoo News and YouGov found that 28 per cent of respondents believed this premise (a figure rising to roughly 70 per cent amongst Republicans).
There is some evidence of an infodemic in Canada. A poll taken for Montreal’s La Presse this past summer revealed that 35 per cent of the population believed mainstream media outlets were spreading false information about COVID-19, while 18 per cent believed the pandemic was a tool of government control. Yet there is also recent data in Canada pointing in the opposite direction, namely rising levels of trust in science and scientists. In November, the CBC reported on one recent international survey: “50 per cent of Canadians said they’re now more willing to advocate for science due to the pandemic. Before COVID-19, that figure was 25 per cent.”
The public interest challenge is thus to devise ways to lessen and contain suspicion – and deepen and widen trust. As a general premise, the former stems from secrecy whereas the latter is cultivated through transparency and direct forms of engagement. As Melinda Mills observes in the Guardian, “Governments and public health authorities are prone to information-heavy, one-directional communications…that wouldn’t necessarily be classified as engaging material.”
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) is an External Advisory Body that provides the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) with independent, ongoing and timely medical, scientific, and public health advice in response to questions from PHAC relating to immunization. In November, the NACI released preliminary guidance for COVID-19 vaccination rollouts based on its own research and expert consultations. Yet the value of such efforts faces two significant vices: an excessive reliance on scientific experts on the one hand, and Canadian federalism and jurisdictional fractures on the other hand.
While many Canadians actively seek guidance from Medical Officers and Health Ministers, others are likely to cast doubt over such authoritative messaging – for a myriad of reasons and motivations. Online networks of misinformation nurture such doubts and create alternative narratives. Governments at all levels must therefore complement linear communications with open and discursive engagement, as Mills notes.
In attempting to do so, however, federalist quandaries are likely. As just one example, there has been much variation and confusion about the importance and usage of masks. If divisions emerge across jurisdictions with regards to the efficacy, logistics, and prioritization of vaccine deployments, public trust will erode. The variance in effectiveness in both testing capacities and contact tracing efforts across Provinces – as well as the refusal of two Provinces to adopt a national app for COVID alerts, provide ample reasons for concern.
Fortunately, governments can build from a position of relative strength: one global survey in 2020 found that 79 per cent of respondents viewed vaccines as safe while 84 per cent found them effective (Gallup World Poll). Yet a September 2020 Angus Reid poll in Canada found a stark contrast in views, as 39 per cent of respondents were keen to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, while 38 per cent preferred to wait.
When such a contrast is coupled with the emergence of more hardened viewpoints such as anti-mask movements – and various other conspiracy notions, the stakes are high. Governments must work together – as well as with the citizenry. A useful step would be the creation of an online citizen’s panel to work in tandem with NACI and other public bodies in devising a set of principles to underpin openness and legitimacy at such a critical juncture.
