Covid-19 measures useless without communication

If there is a lesson that we should learn from the way Uganda has managed the Covid-19 pandemic, it is the importance of effective communication.
In the era of social media, any event or happening is bound to come with an overload of information of all kinds. From genuine, fake, misleading, ignorant, sensational to useless ordinary gossip generated for cheap popularity. 
Many times the myriad of information juxtaposed with the official communication is intended to contradict or even ridicule the latter. This is especially in politically charged and divided environments like the one prevailing in Uganda today.
We take the instance of Covid-19. Being ‘a new disease,’ we were bound to have many challenges in as far as understanding and managing it is concerned. This would affect both the healthcare professionals and the rest of us.

To succeed would require laying down proper communication strategies to disseminate available and new information in a timely manner, as the disease progressed. 
This would require those deep in the business of treating the disease who have the scientific knowledge like the decorated scientists, co-opting with those whose core competence is communication. 

The job of the latter would be mainly four fold. First to act as a go-between for the scientists and the general population. Second to help craft simplified versions of the scientific messages to calm and answer the concerns of an anxious, disrupted society. Third to provide feedback from the society to the scientist and vice versa. Fourth and most important to keep a tab on social media and conjure up appropriate responses plus counter fake and misleading information. 
The scientists are knowledgeable and well intentioned, no doubt but it would be asking too much if they were tasked to deliver effectively on communicating to the people, some of whom are illiterate.

It showed on a talk show on one of the FM radio stations in Kampala. The guest, a decorated scientist, was faced with a barrage of questions from callers. Besides being accused rather unfairly of stealing money, some insinuated that the scientist was part of a conspiracy to make Africans impotent, worse still kill them. This they claimed would be achieved by using fake vaccines. 
The scientist lost their cool and told people to get vaccinated if they wanted to be alive or else they would die and that would be their fault because the government had done its part.
To another caller, the answer was that the scientist had been at the forefront of fighting epidemics in the region for years. Because of this, the whole world had recognised Uganda as being astute in this effort, therefore they knew what they were doing!
These may be facts, but they don’t help the people who really need information on which to act on matters that affect their lives.
Arrogance, anger and a condescending approach by those who know to those who are deemed as supposed to take all that is told to them wholesale, is not effective. 

For instance from the go we should have had proper explanations about the effectiveness and purpose of the lockdown. People wanted to know of what use it was to stop them from accessing their businesses in town for months to minimise interaction yet when they were at home in their slums and other congested areas they were mingling with their neighbours and all manner of people? What about the curfew, does the disease travel faster at night or is it that in the night it was difficult to monitor whether people were following the laid down SOPs?

They would have been told why for about two years their children were kept out of school yet ‘at home,’ the same children spent most of their time outdoors playing and interacting with other children.
Similarly there should be clear information as to why those who were exposed to the virus that causes Covid-19 were not developing natural resistance and for society ‘herd immunity,’ like it happens with many viruses. 
When it came to vaccination, there was and still is a genuine concern as to the prudence and safety of mass inoculation using vaccines that were developed in less than a year yet in other cases it takes years and decades. Also if the vaccine is safe, why did recipients have to sign consent forms that indemnify the government from any ‘eventualities,’ yet they don’t do the same with other vaccines like the one against tetanus and polio?
 
After this there is still need to explain to the people why if a vaccine is supposed to trigger the body into building natural protection by the recipient it is apparently different in this case. Why is it that in the case of Covid-19 vaccines people still need to wear masks, social distance and hand sanitise like they did before they got the vaccine?  
There is also need to know why people in countries like Israel and Germany where there has been close to 70 per cent vaccination coverage, people are still falling sick including the fully vaccinated leading to need for lockdowns and other pre-vaccination measures intended to fight the disease. 
I believe that there are good answers to all these concerns but they have to disseminate in a well-designed purposeful, comprehensive manner.

Otherwise if it is just assumed that people somehow understand or  can be compelled to get in line with government measures to combat the disease, we are in for a long drawn out expensive process. 
We may have to enact laws to force people to vaccinate, wear masks and social distance. 
This will just drive more people away. This applies especially to those who believe that Covid-19 is a whole scheme to enrich a few by impoverishing and disempowering many for all sorts of reasons. 

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues
Twitter: @nsengoba