Comment

Political correctness is hurting the fight against anti-vaxxers

   We're afraid to tackle conspiracy theories among ethnic minorities

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   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
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   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 mother’s spice cupboard can cure a range of ills, but
   take it to the same extreme as Islington organic food-eating
   anti-vaxxers, who “just don’t 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
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   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