A Tale of Two Pandemics: COVID and Disinformation
Photo: Svarnavo Charkabarti on Unsplash
Narratives of pseudoscience and ‘alternative’ remedies have proven to be extremely harmful during the pandemic in India. With many refusing to take the vaccine, Shefali Saldanha argues that the worst may be yet to come.
In late May, when a medical team reached the Sisauda village in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district for a vaccination campaign, they were greeted with mistrust. In the hope of evading the COVID-19 vaccine, a number of residents jumped into the Saryu river. Rumours had spread in the village that the medical officials had not come with the vaccine, but with poisonous injections.
“We tried to sensitise them about the importance of the vaccine but they did not relent,” said Rajiv Shukla, the sub-divisional magistrate. “We tried hard to allay their apprehensions, but only 14 people got themselves inoculated.”
Sisauda is an extreme exception in India, but it isn’t alone; fake news, rumours and misinformation spread fast in the country, and in the case of the ongoing race against the pandemic, these issues can have grave effects on individuals and communities. Too many Indians are still being given mixed messages on vaccines versus home-grown treatments, of the legitimacy of scientifically-proven cures versus bogus claims of gau mutra or yoga being answers to disease.
I’ve been a practitioner of yoga since I was four-years-old, and can attest to the benefit it has had on my life. Being on the mat makes me flexible, makes me feel strong, and makes me feel calm. But I’m also aware that this may not be the case for everyone, and that other forms of activity can have similar-such endorphin-inducing, calming effects. Nor do I think that yoga will cure my cancer, my COVID (I have thankfully avoided both thus far), or any other ailments. However, this has indeed been a harmful narrative in many yoga studios that I’ve visited around the world—most notoriously, by our very own Baba Ramdev. These and other pseudoscientific narratives have proven to be extremely harmful during the pandemic, but I fear the worst is yet to come as many in India are refusing to get the vaccine.
In August last year, as we awaited news, I wrote an essay hypothesising what would happen after the vaccine. I am delighted to be proven wrong both on the timeline and the efficacy of the vaccine. However, my concerns on the logistics of the roll-out and our home-grown anti-vax sentiment have proven to be very real issues. The problem is not currently evident given the acute shortage of vaccines. However, the numbers indicate that once those keen to get the jab (and are able to navigate the Cowin registration system) are vaccinated, we are going to have the hard task of convincing the rest of the population to do the same. This growing anti-vax sentiment is going to delay India’s achievement of herd immunity, and equally delay the return to some degree of normalcy with far-reaching effects on our economy and our citizens.
Speaking with several people in my privileged Mumbai bubble—people that come from different villages across the country—I have discovered that too many have the belief that the vaccine will kill or have negative side-effects that outweigh the benefits. Try as I may, finding the source of this information is not easy. However, there is enough evidence to substantiate my concern on vaccine hesitancy. According to a survey conducted by LocalCircles, between March and April 2021 the per cent of citizens willing to take the vaccine rose from 38% to 77% (just over the requirement for herd immunity). This huge fluctuation, driven by the second wave, is evidence of the general hesitancy that Indians have towards vaccination.
It is unsurprising that many fell prey to this health disinformation. Steve Bannon, Donald’s Trump’s strategist infamously said in 2018 while impeachment trials were going on, “The Democrats don’t matter, the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” Vox expands to define this strategy of “flood the zone with shit” as “saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media … it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn’t achievable.” This could very easily describe what is happening in India today. Indians are flooded with information, some false, some true, on all sources of media, which makes it near-impossible to discern fact from fiction.
Citizens have got mixed messages from all kinds of political and religious influential people. Government officials are both hobnobbing with babas that claim “Allopathy is a stupid and bankrupt science”, and simultaneously encouraging citizens to take the vaccine. Our own government has released “Guidelines for Yoga Practitioners for Covid-19” with claims such as: “Several randomised controlled studies have shown the efficacy of Yogic practices in the management of non-communicable diseases like hypertension, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), bronchial asthma, diabetes, sleep disorders, depression, obesity, etc. that can be comorbid conditions in patients with COVID 19.” I do not mean to discount these trials, but if yoga could manage all these diseases, why would citizens need to take the vaccine or need any kind of allopathic medicine? In a zone thoroughly “flooded with shit,” this narrative feeds into an overall mistrust of evidence-based-medicine. By extension, it only ends up undermining trust in vaccination.
We are living in the age of disinformation, and it is having a far-reaching effect on our lives.
Adding fuel to the fire is the government's cherry-picked and haphazard application of WHO recommendations. During the middle of the pandemic, we have been encouraged to participate in religious and political rallies that turned out to be super-spreader events. This disregard for proven countermeasures such as banning crowded events, undermines all other messaging on the importance of safe distancing.
The government has failed in preventing the spread of the disease and has adopted policies that have encouraged its transmission. The inadequacy of medical facilities in the rural areas often means that people living in these areas are left with nothing but pseudoscientific cures for their ailments.
While politicians have encouraged close-distancing, at the same time they’ve admonished the poor for their “covidiot” behaviours and absence of “civic sense.” Blaming individuals for doing what they’ve been encouraged to do by their leaders. When the reality is that the system has failed a majority of our citizens.
The government has failed in terms of preventing the spread of the disease, and worse, has adopted policies that have encouraged its transmission. To top it off, it has failed catastrophically to care for the victims. The complete inadequacy of medical facilities in the rural areas often means that people living in these areas are left with nothing but pseudoscientific cures for their ailments. It is not because they aren’t educated enough, or too stupid to understand (common accusations that I hear repeatedly), it is because they have no alternative. With on average one doctor to 1,457 citizens, a ratio that is much lower in rural areas and much below the ratio recommended by the WHO, it is unsurprising that people in rural areas have lost faith in the healthcare that they anyways have limited access to.
Not only is there not a clear message coming from the government, but they continue to condone disinformation and destroy truth. The immediate solution is to institute and implement laws that would tackle and shut down all the false information. There should be immediate action taken against religious leaders, government officials, and other spreaders of pseudoscience. Citizens deserve to not be sold products or be subject to health information that has not gone through a rigorous approval process, especially when it's a matter of life and death. Over the years India has institutionalised “alternative facts” in the form of “alternative medicine.”
Secondly, all products or cures that are not backed by evidence, and not gone through a strict approval process should not be allowed to be sold, let alone advertised. The same quality control procedures we require for the production of alcohol, medicine, and dangerous chemicals should be applied to purported cures of any form and for any disease. There should be no double standards or exceptions made.
Thirdly (assuming the vaccine shortage issue will be fixed in the coming months) we need a low-tech solution for the vaccine drive. Expecting 70% herd immunity with a vaccine you can only get online—in a country where only 55% have internet access—is unreasonable. A similar approach to what was taken for the polio drive could be adopted. Go village to village, street to street perhaps, allowing walk-ins but having some control on numbers to avoid overcrowding. Technology is required for the registration and maintenance of vaccine records (that seems to be in place) but not for the dissemination of the vaccine. Continuous use of technology such as the Cowin registration system is going to further exaggerate the already high levels of inequality.
To get 70% of citizens vaccinated, the percent needed to achieve herd immunity, action needs to be taken now. Otherwise, stories of citizens going to great lengths to avoid vaccination—like the villagers in Sisauda—are going to become commonplace.
The war against disinformation has been a long time coming and is necessary not only for saving lives today, but in preventing the erosion of our democracy long into the future. The war is here. It is a war on truth. From my yoga mat, to democracy, to vaccines—we are drowning in a sea of lies. We need to fight back. My hope is that this crisis will be the impetus for finally fighting back.
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Shefali Saldanha is Singapore-based working for an Impact Investing firm managing the India portfolio. Previously she worked for a social enterprise based in Mumbai. She has an MBA from Oxford, a BA from the University of Virginia and over a decade of experience working in the social sector space in India and regionally. You can find her at linkedin.com/in/shefalisaldanha.
