JOHANNESBURG, South
Africa
In Germany, Lutheran pastors are
offering COVID-19 shots inside churches. In Israel’s science-skeptical
ultra-Orthodox community, trusted rabbis are trying to change minds. And in
South Africa, undertakers are taking to the streets to spread the word.
A doctor gives a man a vaccination against coronavirus inside the St. Petri church in Chemnitz, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021. From South African undertakers to ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbis, an unconventional cadre of people has joined global efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates. Launching campaigns that traditionally have been the realm of public health authorities, they’re opening church doors, going door to door, village to village, touting the benefits of vaccination, sometimes making shots available on the spot
The funeral directors’ message: “We’re burying
too many people.”
A year after the COVID-19 vaccine became
available, traditional public health campaigns promoting vaccination are often
going unheeded. So an unconventional cadre of people has joined the effort.
They are opening sanctuaries and going door to
door and village to village, touting the benefits of the vaccines and sometimes
offering shots on the spot.
As the outbreak drags on into a third year,
with the global death toll at 5.4 million, vaccine promoters are up against
fear, mistrust, complacency, inconvenience and people who simply have bigger
worries than COVID-19.
On a December day, a convoy of hearses with
sirens wailing drove up to a shopping mall in Johannesburg’s sprawling Soweto
township.
“Vaccinate, vaccinate!” Vuyo Mabindisi of
Vuyo’s Funeral Services said as he handed out pamphlets on how to avoid
COVID-19. “We don’t want to see you coming to our offices.”
Several people responded with curiosity and
questions, while others carried on with their shopping.
With a population of 60 million, South Africa
has reported 3 million-plus COVID-19 cases, including over 90,000 deaths. Those
are the highest figures in Africa. Only about 40% of South Africa’s adult
population is fully vaccinated, and that is one of the best levels on the
continent. After a fitful start, there is ample vaccine.
Thabo Teffo, a 32-year-old bank employee, was
among those seeking shots recently at a Soweto church.
Teffo said he had been skeptical but came under
pressure from his parents and two vaccinated sisters, and also had a recent
health scare that turned out not to be COVID-19.
“That encouraged me to go ahead and get
vaccinated for my peace of mind and to protect my family,” he said.
Rupali Limaye, a behavioral scientist who
studies global vaccine hesitancy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, said community-level efforts may resonate more than impersonal mass
media campaigns.
A Funeral Parlours Association member distributes a leaflet in Soweto, South Africa, Tuesday Dec. 7, 2021. Over 40 hearses took part in what was a COVID-19 vaccine awareness campaign, with the slogan: "We not in a hurry to see you!"
German pastor Christoph Herbst believes giving
COVID-19 shots in surroundings that feel more familiar than medical settings
may help. That’s why he and several other Lutheran
pastors in the Saxony region contacted an aid group to offer shots
inside their churches, despite sometimes violent anti-vaccination protests in
recent weeks. Some pastors have been criticized and even threatened.
“We believe that we have a responsibility that
goes beyond ourselves,” said Herbst, of St. Petri church in the eastern city of
Chemnitz. “We’re not doctors and we’re not professionals. But we have the space
and we have volunteers who can organize something like this.”
Herbst opened St. Petri’s wrought-iron doors on
a recent vaccination day and sighed with relief when he saw the long line of
people waiting in the cold.
Retirees Hannelore Hilbert and her husband came
to get booster shots in time for the holidays.
“Last year’s Christmas was really sad. We were
all alone,” said the 70-year-old Hilbert, who looked forward to celebrating
with at least some of her five grandchildren in person — not on Skype, like
last year.
The Western-made vaccines have proved
extraordinarily safe and remarkably effective overall at preventing COVID-19
deaths and hospitalizations, and experts say that seems to be holding true even
amid the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant. Health authorities warn
that low vaccination rates are giving the virus more opportunities to mutate
into new variants.
Saxony has Germany’s lowest vaccination rate
and high COVID-19 numbers.
Herbst said many naysayers are concerned about
possible side effects, feel they are overly pressured by authorities, or resent
any measures supported by the government. Some feel discriminated against as
East Germans, because not all their hopes have been fulfilled 30 years after
communism’s collapse.
“It’s important that there’s a space where we
listen to each other without immediately lapsing into condemnation,” Herbst
said.
Chicago community activist Caesar Thompson uses
that same approach as he knocks on doors in struggling Black neighborhoods hit
hard by the virus.
Thompson, 44, is a “vaccine ambassador”
enlisted by city health authorities. He said the idea is not to strong-arm or
cajole. Instead, he said, he offers information, answers questions and lets
people know he can sign them up to receive shots in their homes or nearby.
Thompson has a salesman’s gift of gab, and he
has used it at churches, train stations, parks, flea markets — almost anywhere
people gather.
Thompson said it helps that he’s “just a guy on
the street.” “You might even know me if you live in my neighborhood,” he said.
In communities he targets, the coronavirus is
often not the most pressing concern, Thompson said. For people in crime-ridden
neighborhoods who lack jobs or health insurance and are struggling to feed
their families, “COVID is down the list for them,” he said.
In conservative Wyoming, the vaccine can be a
hard sell. Commissioners in Campbell County voted against using federal dollars
for an education campaign about the vaccines, worrying that it would smack of a
mandate. The county’s vaccination rate is about 27%.
Gabby Watson, 23, of Gillette, said she has no
intention of getting vaccinated “because I’m really healthy and take care of
myself. I’m just not a high risk for COVID. I just don’t see the reasoning for
me to get the vaccine.”
She said the U.S. government is pushing
COVID-19 vaccines too hard.
“They’re pushing more people away and creating
more of this thought bubble of, ‘What the hell are you trying to do with my
body? What are you trying to do with my freedom?’” Watson said. “And that’s not
a good direction to go into either.”
A health worker administers the vaccine for COVID-19 to a woman, who earlier refused the vaccine, during a door-to-door vaccination drive in Sativeti village, on the outskirts of Gauhati, India, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021.
Suspicion of secular authorities is rampant
in Israel’s
community of ultra-Orthodox Jews, They shun many trappings of modern life,
follow a strict interpretation of Judaism and rely on rabbis to guide many life
decisions. While some rabbis have encouraged vaccination, others have taken a
less aggressive approach.
The ultra-Orthodox have some of Israel’s lowest
vaccination rates and have been hit hard by the pandemic.
Now, facing omicron, Israeli officials “are
going on the offensive,″ said Avraham Rubinstein, the mayor of Bnei Brak, the
country’s largest ultra-Orthodox city. They are deploying mobile vaccination
clinics and enlisting prominent rabbis in the community.
Yossi Levy, a 45-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew,
recovered from the virus earlier this year, as have his eight children and
wife. He has repeatedly booked and canceled COVID-19 vaccine appointments.
“It isn’t something pressing. I’m not opposed
to it. It’s just laziness,” Levy said.
While Israel’s vaccination rates for the second
dose among the general population hover around 63% and the booster at 45%, in
the ultra-Orthodox community the numbers are around half of that.
The ultra-Orthodox — 13% of Israel’s population
— tend to live in crowded neighborhoods, with large families in small
apartments, where sickness can spread quickly. Synagogues, the centerpiece of
social life, bring men together in small spaces. Also, half of that population
is under 16 and only recently became eligible for vaccination.
Gilad Malach, who heads the ultra-Orthodox
program at a Jerusalem think tank, said there is a “double fear: fear of the
state and fear of science. There is no basic trust in these entities.”
In India, complacency is contributing to a low
rate of second shots among the population of 1.4 billion: 40% are fully
vaccinated and around 19% have received just one shot.
The country has recorded nearly 35 million
cases and over 450,000 deaths.
In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state,
Rohit Kanojia received his first shot in August but didn’t get the second one.
“I forgot,” the 23-year-old said, adding that
people are no longer afraid of COVID-19. People roam around without masks and
no one maintains social distance, he said. “Life is almost normal.”
Jeet Bahadur, a 45-year-old cook, got his
second shot months late at a Sikh temple in New Delhi. For him, like many
others in India who are trying to eke out a living in a crippled economy, the
virus just wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. - AP
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