COVID-19: Cognitive Dissonance and the Race towards Achieving Herd Immunity in Fiji
“The Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”: Cognitive Dissonance and the Race towards Achieving Herd Immunity in Fiji
“Cognitive dissonance is the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings—even when those findings can save our lives.” This dynamic is playing out during the pandemic among the many people in Fiji who refuse to be vaccinated, wear masks or practice social distancing. Human beings are deeply unwilling to change their minds. And when the facts clash with their pre-existing convictions, some people would sooner jeopardize their health and everyone else’s than accept new information or admit to being wrong. The discomfort felt when your beliefs are inconsistent with one another or with your actions is what we know as cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias.
Let’s say that Tomasi smokes cigarettes despite knowing it can lead to lung cancer. He continues to do it because he tells himself he needs the cigarettes to help him deal with anxiety. Or maybe he’ll say he doesn’t smoke nearly enough cigarettes for them to cause serious harm. In this example, Tomasi is reducing the dissonance by convincing himself the behavior is okay in his mind. This is clearly a cognitive dissonance.
The current rhetoric and landscape of divided opinions on the COVID-19 vaccine emanating in Fiji, from facts versus conspiracy, science versus religion, rights versus responsibility, herbal remedies versus modern drugs, and government versus opposition, there is an unprecedented wave of misinformation, and fabricated lies swarming around reinforcing deep held confirmation bias. We often clothe and soothe our discomfort with misinformation when challenge with facts and reality.
When we unpack cognitive dissonance within the context of an alarming infection rate in Fiji that remains the highest in the world, it is fair to say that it is not COVID-19 that is killing people, now with a death toll almost 200. It is ignorance and the blatant refusal to acknowledge what the science and facts are showing that is killing people. Ninety percent of deaths reported in Fiji were people that were not fully vaccinated. The daily statistics is now showing that we have the highest daily cases reported for our population size with over 22,500 cases since the current outbreak in April this year and will continue to grow. No doubt, there will be more deaths expected to be reported within the coming weeks and months. We are at a crisis, a national health emergency that is severely straining our health system, putting our frontline health workers at risk, and crippling our economy.
Despite being a developing nation, Fiji has one of the highest rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the world where it accounts for more than 80 percent of all deaths, of which most are premature. Adults of any age in Fiji with the pre-existing medical conditions can be more likely to get severely ill from COVID-19 and may need, hospitalization, intensive care, a ventilator to help them breathe, or they may even die. This means that patients with certain chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension (and other cardiovascular diseases), chronic respiratory illnesses, chronic kidney and liver conditions are more likely to be affected by Covid-19. More importantly, once they do get infected by the virus, patients with chronic illnesses have a much higher likelihood of having worse clinical outcomes (developing a more severe form of the disease or dying) than an average patient. Despite this, most people still refuse to get vaccinated and opt for herbal remedies such as Vevedu (that only treats symptoms not the virus), or religious interventions.
We can now also begin to unpack and examine the behavioral pattern of the populace who refuse to be fully vaccinated. Particularly when we talk about tailoring and packaging future national health interventions, targeted campaigns and awareness for the public. This is particularly important for public-health experts, communication strategists, national health analysts and the Ministry of Health in Fiji to consider in order to avoid future mass outbreaks that can be contagious, and likely to be exacerbated by this cognitive dissonance that is fueling people’s fears, misconceptions about lifesaving medicines, facts, vaccines and science. This kind of intervention can certainly shift the way that people engage with scientific evidence that results in more informed decisions.
Here are some tips on how we can deal with everyday cognitive dissonance:
- Sit with the discomfort of wanting to do something that you know isn't beneficial to you or your community. A simple way to support yourself through this is to acknowledge your discomfort without judging yourself and to take a few deep mindful breaths to reset your fear center. Then you can go about to change your behavior.
- Be open to admitting that your beliefs or actions were wrong. To be human is to make mistakes. Even the WHO changed its stance on mask-wearing, later declaring that this protects against the coronavirus. The evidence and recommendations will evolve as we learn more about COVID-19, and so will our stance.
- Get real about the facts. It's easy to discount masks because they are non-foolproof. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. Just as education isn't a guarantee to a better future but rather an insurance that lowers your chances of not having said better future, masks are inherently about risk minimization.
- Countering the claims of Covid-19 vaccine sceptics. The vaccine reduces the risk of transmission, probably by 60 to 80 percent. It isn’t 100 percent, but in terms of public health, very substantially reducing the risk of transmission helps reduce the risk of the virus spreading. So the more people are vaccinated, the more we will be able to block this virus, and the more difficult it will be for it to spread through the population. And the sooner we will be back on the road to economic recovery.