大象传媒

Twenty year old student, Jordan Lee, had been planning to have fun at University: with his dyed pink hair and sense of humour he thought this would be a given. The pandemic changed everything and he鈥檚 now working locally to challenge vaccine hesitancy and the fake news reports behind it.

Jordan is one of twenty Covid Ambassadors recruited in West Yorkshire from BAME backgrounds to talk to people in communities where vaccination drives are meeting resistance. It鈥檚 hard to counter the avalanche of misinformation at a national level, but Jordan and the team think they can make inroads locally and help to rebuild trust.

In this programme he talks to doctors, community leaders and government officials. He also speaks to people living in some of the poorest parts of the city about their fears and what can be done to address them. He says he wanted to get involved because he knows how hard people are finding life and he believes this direct approach will work:

鈥淲e have to build the trust: you need the community to accept you and what makes this project special is that we are all from a BAME background. We鈥檙e coming up with ideas and we鈥檙e on their side. They can see us and know that we have no ulterior motive or agenda, there is such a strong collection of us.鈥�

Jordan starts by meeting Shadim Hussain, a member of a Government steering group who lives in a multigenerational house in Bradford. His Mum sadly passed away from Covid in November and he鈥檚 just got a call from his GP offering his 78 year old Dad the vaccine. He says it鈥檚 normal for many others in his South Asian community to be advocates for their first generation parents:

鈥淗owever, what is not normal is the number of children who will receive this call and refuse the vaccine on behalf of their parents! This is very worrying...we must work hard and fast to understand these fears and anxiety and protect this core of 70-80 year olds who are clearly at risk.鈥�

Jordan talks to Dr John Wright, an epidemiologist who heads of the Bradford Institute for Health Research. He鈥檚 been collecting data on both the number of missed vaccine appointments across different communities and those who are refusing the appointments at the outset. In-depth interviews locally are revealing the impact of various factors, including social media.

鈥淭he city is now braced for a fight against disinformation and antivax conspiracy theories. There鈥檚 a lot of worry and hesitancy about the vaccine, particularly in our South Asian communities,鈥� says Dr Wright.

A revealing conversation with Abdul Majid highlights the gulf that exists 鈥� he says he was good at science and has a science degree. His own father is in intensive care with covid-19 and his 61 year old uncle died of complications from covid: 鈥淚 used to laugh. I thought there was no such thing. I laughed at it and now it's laughing at me. It's heart-breaking."

Abdul tells Jordan that he has shared many conspiracy theories about the pandemic on social media, and believes that scepticism locally is now widespread. This complicates the task of the covid testers in Bradford, who find that there is no answer at about half of the houses they visit, and that residents who do answer often refuse to be tested.

"Some people won't be tested because they are too busy, some don't believe in it and think it's a government conspiracy, some people won't test because if they turn out to be positive they don't want to self-isolate because of financial worries," says Ishaq Shafiq, who runs community testing for Bradford's Covid Response Hub.

Producer: Sue Mitchell

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