In what we trust?
Surveys find that residents of north-western Europe trust their governments and fellow citizens quite a lot, while those in southern and eastern Europe do not. When the World Values Survey (wvs) asks Swedes whether most people can be trusted, more than 60% answer yes. In Italy only about 30% do so, and in Romania a mere 7%. Another study, the European Social Survey (ess), asks respondents to rate their trust in politicians on a ten-point scale. In 2018 the Dutch averaged 5.4, the Poles 3.1 and the French and Germans in between. One in eight Bulgarians gave their politicians a zero. In Georgia, a post soviet country in Caucasus only 14% think that the parliament is doing a good job (NDI) and 40% answered none to the question “Which political party is closest to your interests?”.
According to the National Democratice Institute´s Dec.2020 research the vaccine hesitancy towards the vaccines against Covid-19 in Georgia was 41%. After AstraZeneca case (severe side effects reported by EU countries, including death) percentage of people who felt hesitant towards vaccination increased to 53%. With a 22% increase rate of vaccine hesitancy, Georgia remains in a place from where it is hard to foresee herd immunity in the picture. Reports show, that trust in vaccine safety has been affected by the British-Swedish manufacturer´s case throughout the world too. The authorities however tried to handle it in different ways. From those, we will discuss the Georgian and Norwegian perspectives.
The immunisation programme in Georgia started a day after the news on blood clots has emerged from the nordic countries. Government, admitting that the vaccination campaign was late to start anyways, had now to deal with the unfortunate coincidence too. The economy of the country was failing not only because of the pandamic but also because of the disorderly handling of it. e.g. rules like quarantine after 9 PM and other ideas that were implemented with no efficiency check, whereas street protests and marriage/funeral celebrations taking place as normal, with no limitation of the number of guests.
Helse- og omsorgsministeren
In Norway, AstraZeneca was stopped on March 11 and was not continued despite the EMA/WHO recommendation. Norwegian authorities decided to research the cases of death, find exact mechanisms of the cause and resume the use of the medicine only after finding enough reasons to do so. For now April 15th is the expected date for final decision. Until then the Astrazenecca vaccine is not in use by any age group. When asked whether this would affect the society´s trust in government and/or vaccination , norwegian minister of health Bent Høie stated that he believes pausing the vaccine was the right decision. He is not worried that it may stoke fears or lead people to mistrust the Covid vaccines — on the contrary, not stopping it could have led to worries and conflict.
“We have all along acted in line with being as open as possible about this, because that is what creates a basis for safety and trust”, he said to VG.
“People can see that we are doing what we said we would. We have said that we would be open about possible side effects, and that there may be rare side effects that have not been discovered in the clinical trials when the vaccine is now being administered to the many. We have said that we are monitoring this, and if we discover things then we will consider the consequences”, he said.
If the NIPH (norwegian institute of public health) recommends resuming the use of the vaccine, Høie says he will have no trouble taking it. And he hopes the vaccine proves useful in the end.
“Norway’s chance of succeeding with vaccinations is not dependent on being able to use the AstraZeneca vaccine. But internationally, it is of great importance. It’s a vaccine which is easier to use in many countries that don’t have the same health services that we do. So I really do hope it can be used”, he said to VG.
Georgia is one of those countries that does not have the “as efficient healthcare services as Norway” does. The South Caucasus nation of some 3.7 million people has reported more than 268,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and 3,650 related deaths. Healthcare services are being constanly privatized down there. Georgian Health Minister Ekaterine Tikaradze has announced that Georgia will continue using AstraZeneca vaccine despite the recent case of an alleged complication following vaccination in the town of Akhaltsikhe earlier today. Tikaradze said at a news briefing that the AstraZeneca vaccine is a safe vaccine the benefits of which overweight the possible risks.
The AstraZeneca vaccine rollout will continue in Georgia without delay”, Tikaradze said.
Earlier that day a 27-year-old nurse developed an alleged anaphylactic reaction after receiving the first shot of AstraZeneca vaccine and died. “I call on everyone to take this vaccine,” 27-year-old nurse Megi Bakradze told the camera. They were almost her last words. Bakradze was filmed getting her AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the clinic where she works, Imedi (Hope), in the provincial town of Akhaltsikhe. She told the local TV reporter that lots of medications have side effects but that it wasn’t a reason to fear vaccination. Her death, just four days into Georgia’s long-delayed vaccination campaign, further frightened an already skeptic public. Healthcare workers, the first category of people eligible for the shots, have reportedly stopped showing up for the jabs.
Health officials complained about the low rate of applications and went so far as to ask the influential Georgian Orthodox Church for help.
“We are asking you to stand by the doctors in this period and to cooperate because people have a lot of trust in you, often they trust you more than the doctors,” Amiran Gamkrelidze, head of the National Center of Disease Control (NCDC), said on March 16, in an appeal to clerics.
Gamkrelidze also claimed, that he asked church for help because throughout history church always relied on science.
But the church, the single most trusted institution in the nation, chose to stay out of it. “The Church cannot take responsibility for promoting the vaccine as this is the responsibility and the purview of healthcare professionals,” a church spokesperson, Andria Jaghmaidze, said.
Georgian officials have not offered any understanding to the people who got cautious after the AstraZeneca case. In the contrary, there have been determined approving that the vaccine is safe and healthcare workers had to just get the jab and encourage others to do so too.
Trying to set an example and despite the medical workers being prioritized the georgian president got vaccinated on live television.
During a Norwegian language lesson together with 20 other migrants from different countries (mostly asian and middle-eastern) my fair and long haired teacher Sigurd asks me: “So what is that word that is highly valued in the Norwegian society?”. The language courses included teachings of society matters too, like job market, bank loans, recycling and etc. I was used to be asked questions of mostly medical nature. As a matter of fact, I could have as well been sleepy. I look at him with a confused face and say ,”free healthcare service?”, “ security?”, “Brunost?” (its a norwegian cheese version of something that has nothing to do with cheese really). Nope, he said I meant “Tillit”.
Tillit translates as: trust; faith; confidence and very often during the classes we used to come up with examples of “trust” we had experienced. “Trust is when norwegians leave their babies in the trolleys outside the building and they´re at home and cooking”, “trust is felt in almost everything in here”, “trust is another word to the norwegian naiveness”, “trust is when you leave your Canon cam in the parking lot over night and it is still there the other morning”, “trust is a choice based on justice, injustice creates mistrust”- echoed the classroom.
Soon and for understandable reasons “Tillit” became my favorite norwegian word. A word, that has gotten a whole new meaning during my life in northern Europe, coming from the east. As described earlier, trust may come in different forms and can be interpreted differently, but what is for sure is that it takes two parties to make it happen.
Look at us, we are from different places and all have different reasons behind our different levels of trust towards systems and people and things in general too.
In the meanwhile EMA declared AstraZeneca vaccine safe to use, Vaccine Safety Board accuses AstraZeneca for using ‘outdated’ data in press release About its COVID-19 Shot. Things will become clear soon.
The medicine might be safe after all, but will there ever be a jab for trust?
In what we trust?
For more read an interview I gave to the Georgian new portal in georgian language:
https://www.ambebi.ge/article/254394-endet-adgilobriv-propesionalebs-ras-ambobs-nor/
Written by: Mariana Tokvi Eiane
