Covid vaccine: We can't let conspiracy theorists convince a third of the public to shun this light at the end of the tunnel – Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP

I’ve never been troubled by injections, but the other day I found myself getting quite emotional at the thought of one that’s coming my way in the near future.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is looking forward to getting a Covid vaccine (Picture: Getty Images)

I was imagining the sharp scratch of a needle and the cold flush of a second, consolidating dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

What really got to me was the enormity of what that will mean, not just for me but for everyone and for how we’ve been forced to live. That simple jab will likely represent the light at the end of a year-long tunnel for our entire planet.

Following publication of the breath-taking clinical efficacy of at least three candidate vaccines, all of which have exceeded expectations, the Scottish Health Secretary revealed to parliament how they will be dispensed to the public.

With ambitious rapidity and on a military scale, the shots will be offered to 4.5 million adults in three waves. It’s hoped that the vaccine will have been distributed by the spring, offering us the tantalising prospect of a ‘normal’ summer.

In addition to the monumental effort required in mobilising over 2,000 vaccinators and support staff, we’ll need a solid public information campaign to reassure people it’s safe to use. It’s important the vaccine is not forced upon people, we don’t want mandatory mass-medication. We don’t actually need 100 per cent vaccine coverage to stop the virus, but the more people who get it, the better the herd immunity we create.

It’s worrying then that, according to the Lancet, as many as one in six British adults are likely to refuse the Covid-19 vaccine, with a similar proportion still making up their mind.

That nearly a third of UK citizens might refuse the shot is a source of concern, and you don’t need to spend too long online to discover where this comes from. The anti-vaccination movement has increased in size during the pandemic, with anti-vax groups on social media growing their global membership by 7.8 million since 2019 alone.

Vaccine scepticism has probably existed since their invention in the 18th century. But it has really taken hold in the past 20 years, spawned in part by the discredited writings of Dr Andrew Wakefield, who proposed a fictitious link between the MMR jab and autism. This movement has flourished in the age of online social media.

I’m a passionate defender of free speech, but when that free speech masquerades as bogus public health advice going viral over the internet, then social media companies have to step up and call it out.

Twitter seems to have finally got its act together in challenging Trump’s lies, but the myths churned out by the anti-vaxxers are arguably more damaging and could harm the global eradication of coronavirus. Oxford-AstraZeneca needs to win out over Cambridge-Analytica-style social media manipulation here.

Online platforms will have to play their part in the vaccine rollout, by ensuring the information that people receive is based on science rather than the hysteria of online conspiracy theorists.

Politicians have a job to do as well. The Scottish government and parliamentarians of all stripes will have to come together to offer people reassurance that is evidence-based. That means showing our enthusiasm to have it coursing through our own veins. I’ll need no encouragement on that score.

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