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NHS leaders plan to enlist celebrities and “influencers” with a large social media following in a major campaign to persuade people to have a Covid vaccine amid fears of poor membership.
Ministers and NHS England are compiling a list of “very sensitive” famous faces in the hopes that their advice to immunize would be widely trusted, the Guardian learned.
Health chiefs are particularly concerned about the number of people who are still undecided and the skepticism of vaccines among NHS staff. “There will be a great national campaign [to drive take-up]”A source familiar with the plans said.” NHS England is looking for famous faces, people known and loved. It could be celebrities who are very sensitive and did sensible things during the pandemic. “
No names are believed to have been confirmed. But NHS communications experts privately suggested that footballer Marcus Rashford, who is widely admired for his child food poverty campaign, which forced two government U-turns, and members of the royal family would be ideal recruits. Politicians will not be used, of course.
Expectations are growing that the first of three potentially promising vaccines – Pfizer / BioNTech, of which the UK has secured 40 million doses – will be approved within days, allowing hospitals to start immunizing their frontline health workers as early as December 7, as revealed. from the Guardian on Friday.
The government has secured 100 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and asked the regulator to evaluate it for emergency implementation. An additional 2 million doses of the US Moderna vaccine have also been ordered, bringing the total to 7 million for the UK. All three vaccines involve two doses received several weeks apart.
Meanwhile, an internal NHS briefing document shows that airline cabin crew, firefighters and the unemployed are being targeted as part of a huge team of vaccinators assembled, trained and paid £ 11.20 per hour. to administer the shots.
Under the slogan “Your NHS needs you”, the recruitment campaign aimed at recruiting “tens of thousands” of additional staff will emphasize that vaccines “will be our best defense against the virus along with effective social distancing, wearing a mask and hand washing “and that vaccinators will play a vital role in immunizing” millions of people at risk “.
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Public confidence in vaccines has increased in most of Europe over the past five years, with the largest survey of global attitudes towards vaccination suggesting that only 7% of Brits would not accept a Covid-19 vaccine in March. According to the Lancet results, however, this rose to 11% in June and 14% in July.
For the NHS campaign to counter Covid skepticism, officials plan to use doctors who often appear on television and radio discussing health issues, due to their profile and the trust they are presumed to already have with the public. They will also distribute other “influencers” who are popular on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Religious leaders are asked to help persuade adherents of their faith that vaccination is good for them, their family and the country as a whole. They are seen as important ways to convey pro-immunization messages to people of black, Asian and minority ethnicity in particular, amid concern about potential involvement in some communities.
In Yorkshire, staff from the Bradford Royal Infirmary are working with local community and religious leaders to devise ways to encourage the city’s large Asian population to take the hit.
NHS England and Public Health England are also working out parallel plans to get England’s 1.4 million-strong health service workforce to get vaccinated amid signs that a significant percentage could avoid it.
Jacqueline Totterdell, chief executive of London’s St George’s Hospital Trust, told a seminar run by the Health Service Journal: “I think there is a lot of anxiety. [among staff]and some of the polls we did in South West London show that barely 50% of people are willing to have it without any [assurance about its safety]. We may all think that people may be in a hurry to have it, but in reality we may find that this is not quite the case. “
Thea Stein, the head of the Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, said at the same event: “People who know about vaccines, know about side effects, think they don’t know enough about the potential vaccine side effects. [for Covid] … they feel anxious and uncertain. “
Experts say the overall intake should be between 60% and 75%, depending on the effectiveness of the vaccines.
The British Medical Association, representing British doctors, said those ministers prioritized receiving Covid vaccines due to their underlying poor health, they would need reassurance that vaccines are safe, to counter apprehension. on hiring.
“It is particularly important that people most at risk of serious illness and the people around them are vaccinated. Such individuals will need evidence-based guarantees of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in their specific group, ”said Dr Penelope Toff, co-chair of the BMA’s public health committee.
“It will be crucial that there are clear, culturally tailored communications provided by trusted local and community leaders and targeted at the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities, and that it is easy for these populations to access vaccination.”
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia who specializes in infectious diseases, said famous faces could help “people hear the truth and understand the message.”
“Some form of campaign will be essential, if only to advise people on how to get vaccinated,” he said. “But with the rise in vaccine skepticism in recent years and the spread of disinformation and vaccine conspiracy theories, some form of campaign will be needed to tackle this problem.”
The government refused to release the details of the campaign. A government spokesman said: “An effective vaccine will be the best way to protect the most vulnerable from the coronavirus and the biggest breakthrough since the start of the pandemic, potentially saving thousands of lives.
“Vaccines will only be authorized for use if they meet the stringent safety and efficacy standards of the UK medicines regulator.”
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