Political correctness is hurting the fight against anti-vaxxers – Telegraph.co.uk

We know that there are gaps in vaccine take-up, but public health officials can be curiously vague about why and among whom. And we have turned a blind eye to one group in particular where there is significant anti-vaxx sentiment: my own community of South Asians.

Surgeries around the country have reported South Asian patients refusing the jab. A recent poll by the Royal Society of Public Health found that only 57 per cent of ethnic minority people would be happy to have the vaccine, compared with 79 per cent of white people. Yesterday, Dr Harpreet Sood, from NHS England, said that the spread of false information in the community was part of the problem.

Im unsurprised, given the messages relatives have shown me about vaccines. Some suggest that the jabs contain beef and alcohol (as though Yorkshire grass-fed and Merlot would have been the first ingredients AstraZeneca reached for). Others argue that drinking hot water can somehow cure Covid.

Many an anti-vax swami preys on the sentiment beloved of some South Asians that our mothers spice cupboard can cure a range of ills, but take it to the same extreme as Islington organic food-eating anti-vaxxers, who just dont want anything unnatural in their temple-cum-body.

Other messages feature bog-standard conspiracy theories about vaccines altering human DNA messages that would send many liberals raging if they were raised by a white person. But those same people are rendered speechless when it comes to anti-vax disinformation among South Asians because of political correctness.

As with everything from caste discrimination to sexism, many are happy to drop their most fundamental principles when it comes to ethnic minorities, and treat them as a special case. They sigh phrases such as language difficulties and cultural barriers and turn their backs as if BAME people were wackos on an unreachable isle, beyond salvation.

Yet this is wrong and to be honest, comes across as more racist. Many mosque leaders as well as other religious figures and Asian doctors are working round the clock to correct anti-vax sentiment in their communities. But no one else wants to wade into the debate for fear of being dirtied by accusations of racism.

The irony is that hesitancy around calling out anti-vax sentiment is not as generous-spirited as it seems; it will only harm already-at-risk South Asians living in tight-knit communities everywhere from Leicester to Hounslow, who will not escape Covid as soon as the rest of us if they are unwilling to have the vaccine.

If this year of anxious calibration around R rates and logarithmic scales has taught us anything, it is that every person counts. A 0.1 difference in the R rate can make or break our response to Covid, sending the pandemic soaring rather than shrivelling away.

We cant let misguided sensitivities stop us from saving lives.

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Political correctness is hurting the fight against anti-vaxxers - Telegraph.co.uk