Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa - Covid Experience Highlights Conspiracies, Mistrust... TC_Africa: SouthAfrica
Mistrust of the institutions involved was another factor. Suspicion and uncertainty opens a space in society for stubborn false or incorrect claims and conspiracy theories. Some people were saying that COVID-19 fatalities had been deliberately exaggerated and that it was a scheme concocted by"Big Pharma". Some believed that the virus did not exist.
In Soweto, various Africanised counterfactual claims circulated. For instance, some warned that COVID-19 was a man-made virus purposefully created to destroy black African populations. Or, in a contradictory version, black people were immune and COVID-19 only infected white people. When such misinformation flourishes, people become even more anxious, doubtful and hesitant about getting vaccinated.
Structural, social, economic and political factors together decrease uptake in immunisation programmes. This is particularly evident in townships such as Soweto because of histories of colonisation, marginalisation and racism. For instance,, the white government displaced thousands of people and decreased funding for social services such as education and healthcare for non-whites.
Another factor was related and, in some ways, similar to the issue of mistrust. The pandemic triggered a social mechanism that medical anthropologists refer to as"
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