MIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN Ireland were left in the dark over the nation’s Covid response and vaccination rollout, allowing misinformation to dissuade them not to get the jab and to instead believe in conspiracy theories, experts have warned. 

Latest CSO stats have shown how over half of people currently in ICU are unvaccinated.

Around 28% of those in ICU reported they were not born in Ireland and 90% of those said they were not vaccinated.

The CSO study found that there was a considerably small uptake in the vaccine among migrant communities here. 

For example, the data showed that people from EU14-27 countries who live in Ireland have relatively low levels of vaccination.

The EU 14-27 countries are the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia.

The study found that just 39% of working men and 49% of working women from these countries have had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine.

The HSE has been stressing in recent weeks the efforts it has made to reach immigrant communities here – noting in a press release sent at the end of last month that it had run promotion campaigns, including on social media, in 27 languages.  

Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall raised the issue in the Dáil this week, insisting there needs to be a clear communication strategy to reach these communities. 

Shortall said it was worth repeating that 50% of all unvaccinated people in ICUs were born abroad. 

I am not saying that nothing has been done about that. The HSE has done quite a bit of work on this. They ensured that public health messaging was translated by native people. Those messages are being put out on various websites in 27 different languages. I accept that translation work has been done.

Shortall said she wants to see the strategy changed so that the advice is given by community leaders from each background. 

“There is a tendency at official level in this country to do things through the eyes of the officials, who are often Irish born and bred, middle-aged and middle-class people,” Shortall added. 

Despite the current translation of information which is being sent out to communities, immigrant advocacy groups have said the damage has already been done and that the HSE is now fighting against a tide of misinformation and conspiracy theories which went unchallenged for months among many migrant communities. 

Teresa Buczkowska, Immigrant Council of Ireland Integration Manager, said that the messages which were finally delivered to migrant communities were “too little, too late” and that misinformation was allowed a free reign without ever being challenged by ‘official Ireland’, through public information and advertising campaigns. 

She said that the CSO data relating to vaccine uptake was “striking” but she understands why the uptake is as low as it is.

Buczkowska said the Government needs to send tailored, emotive ads to migrant communities. She warned that just translating HSE documents is now not enough.

“I can see what’s happening on social media and the fear and anxiety around vaccination is so strong and so prevalent that even when I see now the HSE sending messages to these community on social media, the types of comments underneath, and it’s  hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments under the ads, they are negative and are just saying that nobody’s going to go and get the vaccinations,” she told The Journal.

Buczkowska said conspiracy theories have been running wild on social media among migrants in Ireland. This, coupled with a lack of multilingual advertising and information campaigns, has resulted in people believing the lies around vaccines, she said. 

“These posts are saying Covid is not true that this pandemic is just, you know, a fake pandemic and that the Covid vaccine is going to kill everyone that is going to change your DNA.

The migrant communities have been targeted by misinformation, especially Eastern European migrant communities have been targeted by misinformation from very early days of the pandemic, and then very early days of their vaccination programme.

She explained how these messages planted fear and worry into the minds of Eastern Europeans living in Ireland. Their refusal to get the jab is now one based on “a highly emotional reason” and not one rooted in fact. 

These are the reasons why Buczkowska and the Immigrant Council of Ireland want to see migrant specific campaigns to be rolled out by the Government 

Dry information statistics with just a transaltion is not enough because we need to reach out to people on an emotional level as well to tackle the fear with a message of hope with a positive message. The government reacted way too late, didn’t touch all the misinformation and didn’t provide proper information in languages at the beginning.