Fear suffocates hope in car-crash messaging on roll-out
Poor communication on the vaccine plan has turned opportunities to energise into moments of angst, writes
AT this point in the pandemic cycle we should be hopeful: infection rates are falling, hospital pressure is receding, and vaccinations are under way.
Hopeful, however, is not a word that best describes the public mood. The palpable feeling of national frustration can be traced to decisions taken, or rather not taken, last year in our approach to vaccines.
The Covid vaccine programme is the single most important service the State will likely ever be responsible for delivering. It is daunting and exhilarating, the kind of challenge where the best leaders come into their own.
As a communications professional, it was clear to me from last summer that strategic communications — how, when, and in what ways a complex task is planned and delivered — would be central to the success of the vaccination programme and providing hope in the battle against the virus. Reasons to worry soon became apparent.
First, the ‘vaccine taskforce’ itself, the body responsible for the vaccine roll-out. Of its 14 members, all are from the public sector. No communications experts were appointed.
It first met on November 25. By then, the UK equivalent was already six months up and running, with half of its members private sector experts.
The Irish taskforce included people who had for months been responsible for managing and communicating the crisis. For something as vital as the vaccine roll-out, it was ill-judged to expect the same mentally exhausted people to go to bat on the solution, too.
The second reason for worry was the silence. For months, we heard very little about vaccine roll-out planning. Media treatment of the story remained secondary to the daily roller-coaster of the virus itself; glimpses of vaccine thinking and planning emerged only sporadically.
Nothing proactive of meaning was done to change this dynamic.
When we had communication, it was reactive and flat, as illustrated by the rushed publication of the vaccine priority list and the infamous ‘men in yellow jackets’ image when the first doses arrived.
Pictures of 79-year-old Annie getting the country’s first jab, while heart-warming, do not on their own represent strategic communication.
Third, and most damaging of all, was the tone. The messaging was cumbersome, languid, and preachy. In effect, we were told that we would know what we need to know when we need to know it. Media interviews, when they happened, felt like an intrusion on a conversation between healthcare professionals.
The communicators repeatedly turned opportunities to energise and reassure into moments of confusion and angst. I grimaced when I heard one senior vaccine spokesperson in the early days of January use the bulk of a keynote interview to talk about the link between vaccination and anaphylaxis, the likelihood of which is one in 1,000,000 vaccinations. Listeners looking for hope instead heard fear.
The caginess of government members on the rollout was notable, as was the willingness to leave it all to the Minister for Health. It was as if they didn’t trust themselves.
A successful vaccination programme is the ultimate jigsaw. Vaccine supply is one of the four corner pieces, the others being vaccinators, technology, and logistics.
From the start, however, it appeared those in charge treated supply as the only piece that mattered.
Yes, supply matters. Yes, we paid a heavy price for putting people not expert in issues of commerce in charge of the negotiations. But supply became the default shoulder shrug. It began to sound like an excuse.
Into this information vacuum stepped the media doing what the media always do: reporting the information that government either could not, would not, or never thought of communicating.
Day after day, unofficial details of the vaccine roll-out plan appeared prominently in news reports. The initial delay in nursing home deployment; county-by-county details for when each nursing home resident would be vaccinated; the location of vaccine centres, and challenges recruiting vaccinators were the subject of speculation, informed and otherwise. By the time such details were officially confirmed or explained, people had already moved on, frustrated with the Government’s failure to keep them informed.
And now here we are. The public, ruefully reflecting on a ‘meaningful’ Christmas, continues to be greeted with news of the UK’s vaccine roll-out, with dates, times, locations, numbers, infographics, videos, and more. There is a palpable sense of momentum that can be traced to decisions taken by the UK government 12 months ago. Some will say Boris Johnson’s planned end to restrictions on June 21 makes his government a hostage to fortune, but fixed dates just as often bring focus and results.
The contrast in mindsets either side of the Irish Sea right now could not be greater. Here, fear has suffocated hope. On the evening of the Taoiseach’s address on February 23, with goodwill reserves in the red and creeping hostility in the air, we finally got an indicative timeline for when people might be vaccinated. Yet the accompanying ‘path ahead’ document rather clunkily talked about how, despite vaccines, there remain real risks that this winter may be like the last.
Twenty-four hours after the address, Nphet suggested that normal life is “some way off ” and we should not expect vaccines or herd immunity to halt the virus; the day after, they said we’d be close to normal by the end of this year. Confused?
While there is never a wrong time to do the right thing, new-found vaccine bullishness has been undermined by the failings that were apparent last summer.
Vaccine communications have been behind the curve from the off. Now, gripped by fear, and with credibility on the line, hope is hard to find.
‘Heart-warming photos do not, on their own, represent good communication’