‘I’ve been stunned’
It’s not just John Key’s golfing buddies who are anti-vaxxers
An expert says our hope of achieving herd immunity rests on vaccinating children against Covid -19, but new figures show nearly half of caregivers are unlikely to allow it. Meanwhile, Virginia Fallon discovers anti-vaccination rhetoric is rife among the chattering classes.
John Key was on the golf course when the conversation came up.
It wasn’t the first time, of course. The former prime minister has been asking everyone he meets whether they’ll be getting the Covid-19 vaccination, and that day on the green was no different; neither was the reply.
There were four golfers talking and Key discovered only he and one other were for the vaccinations.
‘‘I have been stunned ... these are people who are well-educated, who have historically travelled, who seem to understand the risks involved if they caught Covid-19, but they’re still saying no. What’s shocking me is these people aren’t even contemplating it.’’
About a quarter of New Zealanders say they are either unsure whether they’ll get vaccinated, or they won’t get vaccinated at all, although the Ministry of Health says that number is less than a few months ago. Research released on Friday shows 77 per cent of those aged over 16 say they’re likely to get a vaccine, compared to 69 per cent in March.
However, one of the most explosive findings in the research is that only 56 per cent of caregivers are likely to allow 12 to 15-year olds to be vaccinated, and that could spell trouble further along the line.
Experts say vaccine sceptics could slow down the opening of the borders, delay herd immunity, and derail the country’s economic recovery – and they’re not always who you think they are. While the image of the vaccine and Covid sceptic is one often belonging to the dark depths of the internet, Key meets them at social functions and speaking engagements. They’re affluent, upwardly mobile and professional, but they’re refusing the jab.
It’s the sort of behaviour he expected to see from die-hard conspiracy theorists or those with more extreme religious views, not your average New Zealander.
‘‘These are just well-educated people who say, ‘I’m not getting it’ and I don’t think they are thinking straight.’’
Professor Paul Spoonley was on holiday in the South Island when he realised the anti-vax rhetoric had gone full-blown conspiracy. He’d picked up a free community paper .
‘‘Your typical parish pump newspaper, and it’s going along really well with local events and people and then bang, there it was . . . the editorial, which wants to undermine all the health advice we’re getting and then ends by suggesting there’s an international plan to take over our country.’’
The sociologist warned in February of the ‘‘small but growing community’’ influenced by QAnon and other internet sources. Would-be politician Billy Te Kahika’s conspiracy claims of a plandemic, and vaccine sceptics had convinced him there was trouble brewing.
Back then he said we’d have to fight those opposed to vaccines, and that’s proven to be the case. The problem is that while we still have the more traditional low-trust conspiracists, another group has joined the ranks of refusal.
‘‘In the middle-class constituency [who] you would have thought would have been right at the front of a vaccine queue.’’
Spoonley says those spreading misinformation are consolidating.
‘‘I’ve been surprised when I’ve been having a casual conversation with someone I don’t know for them to suddenly start in on, ‘I wouldn’t have the vaccine because we don’t trust the government.’
‘‘I’ve now had two pamphlet drops in my neighbourhood from the Voices for Freedom, so they’re really ramping it up and doing old-school as well as newschool.’’
Doctor Jagadish Thaker was working from home at his desk when the numbers came in.
’’My reaction was shock ... the data comes in a file and when I started opening it I thought it was remarkable.’’
The Massey University senior lecturer had been waiting for the results of a follow-up survey to the one he’d conducted just after the country’s national lockdown, a survey that showed a quarter of respondents were unwilling to be vaccinated.
Nearly a year later, the new data on Thaker’s screen showed the same thing, this time from a different group.
‘‘It was a remarkable consistency. I was hoping the numbers would have gone down, but they were exactly the same.’’
While Thaker says the typical sceptic tends to be female, older, poorer and less educated, he too has been shocked with those seemingly bucking the trend– some international colleagues included.
‘‘Sometimes more education makes people more entrenched in their beliefs.’’
Thaker found many respondents were suspicious the Covid-19 vaccine had been produced too quickly, and some wanted to see vaccine data for a decade before they take it themselves.
‘‘Even after our lockdown; the border rollout; the Australian outbreaks; the Auckland lockdowns; it’s shocking.’’
A recent United Kingdom study found that as more people getting vaccinated in a neighbourhood, the more attitudes to vaccines changed and the practice became a societal norm, but Thaker says NZ’s drawn-out programme could prevent that here. ‘‘And all this time, the hesitants and sceptics are almost being bombarded with misinformation.’’
But back to the children. Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank says about 80 per cent of people in New Zealand need to be vaccinated if the country is to achieve herd immunity, and we’ll never get 100 per cent of eligible adults.
’’It’s a work in progress, but the thing we have found is it looks like we’re going to need to vaccinate under 16s to have a chance of reaching the threshold.’’
Those under 16 make up 20 per cent of the population, and the rollout would begin with the 12 to 16-year-old age group.
‘‘There’s no reason why – as long as the Medsafe approval is there, and we know it’s safe and effective – we wouldn’t want to vaccinate younger children. We vaccinate children for all sorts of things and really Covid is no different.’’