As the world transitioned from living in a pandemic to living with a pandemic, so too did misinformation transition from “drinking hot water with turmeric, garlic and ginger will cure COVID” to “the vaccine has microchips and will connect people to 5G networks”. ?
This spread of misinformation among our Caribbean audiences posed a communications challenge that, armed with the tool kit, we felt equipped to tackle.
We designed a Verified campaign for and audiences in the 19 Caribbean territories served by UN Information Centre (UNIC) Port-of-Spain.
When the campaign was launched in February 2021, vaccines weren’t available in these countries, though we expected they would soon begin to arrive through the COVAX Facility.
So, we focused on mobilizing early vaccine acceptance by relating the history of vaccination campaigns and highlighting their importance for saving lives and protecting public health. ?
However, the misinformation mill was still churning.
Vaccine skeptics were spreading selected truths sourced from “qualified professionals”. An example of their claims was that since the COVID-19 vaccine did not provide 100% immunity it could not be accepted as a genuine vaccine.?
Messages like these cast doubt on the utility of the vaccine and the motives driving public health policy.?
But we weren’t discouraged. Seeking to remain a beacon of reliable information in a sea of misinformation, we accelerated the campaign with twice-weekly posts.
We appealed for Information Volunteers, promoted a science-based pandemic response, and championed vaccines.
Every third post was punctuated by another from the Verified campaign, to diversify content and remind audiences to critically assess information before sharing.
And to complement and reinforce, we amplified Pan American Health Organization’s COVID-19 material on our social media platforms and .
On average, this approach generated a reach of more than 300 per post, with our highest reach being 5.5K on Facebook.
Eight months after our campaign began, misinformation is still being widely spread and the COVID-19 vaccination rate for the Caribbean is still below 30%, but its performance suggests that audiences can be mobilised to respond to and share trusted information and, we hope, accept the Verified message. ?
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