Unified front to combat COVID-19 - Government enlists influencers to help sensitise public about potential devastation of virus spread

In a strategic move towards driving home the message of a nation united in the fight against COVID-19, the Government has enlisted the help of those most likely to engage the masses in a manner to which they would be most receptive. To communicate important lessons, which seemed to have been previously lost on the regular Jamaican, cultural influencers like dancehall doyenne Spice and gospel sensation Kevin Downswell have been invited on to the battlefield to help combat the escalating spread of the dreaded virus.

“We have used entertainers and other influencers for the primary reason that they have a following, and we need to get the message to all of Jamaica. And so, very importantly, we reach out to persons who have influence in their particular sphere. If they buy into the message and transmit the message, the message flows through them, then it will help to get buy-in, understanding, and, hopefully action,” Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton, explained.

In pushing this agenda, the minister went live on Instagram with Spice on Saturday, April 18, “to answer all your COVID questions”. With Spice currently boasting a reach of 2.6 million followers on Instagram, the live feed saw more than 68,000 viewers tune in to her IG live.

Dr Donna Hope, professor and socio-cultural analyst, the Institute of Caribbean Studies at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus, said it was “an excellent move”.

“I was very pleased to see Spice being a part of that live discussion with the minister of health. It was extremely well received. I looked at a lot of the comments and the feedback. It was a very positive response to it, and Spice did very well in helping to answer a lot of the questions and to sort of broker on behalf of the minister and the Government what they wanted to get across to ordinary people, garrison people, and hard-core people,” said Hope.

OBJECTIVE MET

The health and wellness minister said that the objective for going live with Spice was met as, he says, she is “one of the top entertainers in the country, with significant following, not just in Jamaica, but internationally and certainly within the diaspora, who has reach, and she is a good communicator. So the intention was to have her pose questions from her perspective and her fans’ perspective to me in order for me to understand where the concerns and queries are and to respond to generate further understanding, and I thought we achieved that objective.”

Spice, in a post via her Instagram page, thanked Minister Tufton for taking the time out to answer questions and hear concerns from the people. She said: “I will continue to use my platform to enlighten my followers on this pandemic as much as possible.”

Downswell is also set to go live with Minister Tufton today at 3 p.m., and, according to the gospel minister, “We are all influencers hat means we all have a following. So it’s about using that platform that we’ve all been blessed with, to encourage and influence those who look up to us positively.”

Downswell believes that the Government’s greatest challenge in the fight against the spread of the disease lies with “us as a people … listening and abiding by the regulations that the Government has set. I know we are not used to anything like this. We like being free and physically connected. That’s just who we are.”

He, however, advised, “If we make this sacrifice now, we will see change quicker than expected.”

IMPORTANT CONNECTION

With the number of confirmed cases of those infected with the virus now barrelling towards 300, and six people having died, the need for buy-in to the importance of such sacrifice has become imperative. And Hope believes that the Government sees the value in using artistes, comedians, and other influencers in much the same way that corporate entities always have.

“Why they gravitate towards these cultural creators and actors is because they understand the very important connection that they have into the hearts and minds of ordinary people. These are individuals who have a following. People respond to them, people respect them in different ways, and if you are trying to reach your audience and to impact behaviour, then you have to try and use people who speak the language … and the audience you’re trying to reach can respond to,” Hope explained.

She said that while politicians and people who work in a lot of these high-level positions consider themselves to be friends of ordinary people, “a lot of the messages that they try to send for things that are important and to impact on behaviour change, there is what we call a lot of noise in the communication channel. People will see it sometimes as you trying to impose your authority or push them into a little corner. But when people can break it down in a language they understand, using the comedy, using the regular language, talking to them on a kind of equal platform, talking across to each other as opposed to talking down to you,, then you can get a better response that is more positive and the meaning that you are trying to get across can be shared better.”

To this end, the Government has added another line of defence – #BeatCOVID19 – which also seeks to employ the help of influencers. The Ministry of Health and Wellness,via a Twitter post on April 10, sought to remind people, including the most vulnerable, about what they could do to help protect themselves from the disease. The post was accompanied by a video clip showing two of Jamaica’s cultural gems, Fay Ellington and Oliver Samuels, role-playing in an effort to get this message across.

The initiative was led by UNICEF in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization, United Nations Jamaica, and the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

NEEDS ALL-OF-SOCIETY APPROACH

As the series continues, with the Government targeting more influencers, Minister Tufton is calling for “all hands on deck” as, he says, “this disease cannot be dealt with by any single group. It can’t be dealt with by just medical personnel, the Government, the Opposition, or any single group. It’s an all-of-society approach. Everyone counts, and hence the need to spread out to include as many persons and key influencers as possible.”

And so Tufton is encouraging “all to be ambassadors for the cause, and entertainers and other influencers who have the reach, the impact, I’d like them to see as part of their responsibility to the country, to their fans, to the people that they influence, as helping the behavioural change that is necessary to minimise the risk of COVID-19 and also learning more about COVID-19. So I am engaging and soliciting as many persons as possible because again, it has to be an all-of-society approach. The intention is to get buy-in at that level, which is why the outreach is so important.”

However, Hope believes that behaviour change and having an impact on behaviour change “is something that is going to be a little more scientific”.

“Remember, a lot of people are poor people. Dem bungle up inna di likkle place dem … . Downtown people don’t have any yard and living space, so it’s hard, and we have to recognise a lot of the difficulties people face in a real-life situation. A man has to hustle di likkle food every day, di woman haffi guh out a road jus to mek a likkle meal, so people are going to be putting themselves out there. So asking them to protect themselves and to wear the mask and to try and practise ‘Tan A Yuh Yaad’ (as Prime Minister Andrew Holness always advises), or the six feet apart, is something that we’re going to have to ramp up the discussion on,” she said.