At 12 noon tomorrow,when the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department hosts its virtual COVID-19 Vaccine Sensitisation Session, the featured presenter, Ms Olive Scott, health education officer, will have her job cut out for her.

In a just-concluded study of posts on its platform, Facebook has discovered that most of the comments promoting vaccine hesitancy are coming from a limited number of users that have a major role in pushing this scepticism.

The anti-vaccine lobby, or anti-vaxxers as they are popularly called, might be small in numbers in Jamaica, but they are as effective as those spotted by Facebook viciously feeding off the gullibility and sometimes ignorance of the people.

Like creatures of prey, they waylay the unsuspecting, many of them populating social media and, regrettably, even the traditional media that is our last bastion against the spread of misinformation, ‘alternative facts’, and conspiracy theories which abound.

The anti-vaxxers are salivating at information that a few European countries have suspended, though temporarily, the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to await the results of investigations of reports that some people suffered blood clots after inoculation.

It will make no difference to the vaccine sceptics that Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and a handful of other countries that have suspended the vaccines have said there is as yet no evidence of a connection with the blood clots and the vaccine.

Most of the doses being investigated come from the same batch of AstraZeneca manufactured in Europe, suggesting that if there is any defect, it is not in all doses of the vaccine, including those from India.

The World Health Organization and European regulators have continued to remain confident about the safety of the vaccine. The European Medicines Agency insisted yesterday that the frequency of clots after the vaccine was not higher than normal.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sought to reassure his country yesterday about the safety of the novel coronavirus vaccine made by AstraZeneca, saying: “Our experts and scientists have spent an awful lot of time making sure that every vaccine approved in Canada is both safe and effective.”

The British Broadcasting Corporation quoted the EU’s medicines regulator as saying that there is no indication that the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is linked to an increased risk of blood clots and the number of cases in vaccinated people was no higher than in the general population.

“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine,” the European Medicines Agency said last Thursday.

We are sure that it will be of no consequence to the anti-vaxxers that it is a mere handful of people who suffered blood clots, compared with the millions of people killed by COVID-19.

Once again, we suggest that the Government takes a collaborative approach, including the loyal Opposition, in the fight against the virus and the promotion of vaccines across the length and breadth of Jamaica.

Until we win this fight, we will not get back to a normal society or restore our economy and end the widespread suffering caused by the pandemic.