MHM Magazine

would be a bureaucrat. Even if it doesn’t kill you, it can wield power over your life in a range of ways. It isn’t above petty insult and it doesn’t care about your special case.” Some people have responded to COVID vaccines with selfishness and a “seeming indifference to the optics of gloating,” says Clinical Psychologist, Pierre Brouard. As we gear up for our vaccine rollout, we must learn from the responses from other countries which have ‘bureaucratised’ their vaccine response. “Taking the COVID vaccine is never just a private act,” says Brouard. “The private and personal has become political because how I act as an individual affects other people.” In the midst of calls to allay vaccine hesitancy and explicitly influence public perception, everyone is suddenly an expert at roll-out and side-effects. The pandemic has certainly brought out the darker side of human behaviour and desperation turns to deception very quickly. The nature of being human is that we develop stereotypes of what illness looks like, we have entrenched biases about illnesses like obesity compared to cancer, and we make moral judgements accordingly. But labelling all queue jumpers as ‘anti-social’ isn’t helpful. There are far more complex dynamics at play. Through a lens of moral hypocrisy, anger, guilt and envy play an important role. Moral hypocrisy is the “conflict between self-interest and the interest of Viral Vector Vaccine Nucleic Acid Vaccine Inactivated Vaccine Subunit Vaccine Dr Juno Thomas is Head of the Centre for Enteric Diseases at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg. She is a specialist pathologist in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases. Her areas of expertise include communicable disease epidemiology, surveillance and outbreak response. Prof Lucy Allais is the Director of the Wits Centre for Ethics. She is a philosopher who holds academic positions at both the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of California, San Diego. She is a specialist in moral and political philosophy and bioethics. Pierre Brouard is the Acting Director of the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender (CSA&G) within the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Humanities. He is a registered Clinical Psychologist whose interests include sexualities, gender, diversity, transformation and human rights. The Healthcare Workers Care Network (HWCN) is a nationwide healthcare worker support network which offers all healthcare workers across the public and private sectors free support, pro bono therapy, resources, training and psychoeducation. The HWCN’s volunteer mental health professionals (including psychiatrists, psychologists, GPs, registered counsellors, and social workers) provide help, intervention, and support to all healthcare workers, including hospital laundry staff, and porters. others.” The COVID vaccines are a perfect example. There is a definite tension between self-interest and the interest of others, and emotion plays an important role. The more angry we are about vaccine inequality, the more likely we are to stereotype and judge others. The more guilty we feel, the more likely we are to justify our actions and contort our explanations and experiences. While benign envy may inspire us to get the vaccine, malicious envy may explain why we are cruel, unkind, dishonest and anti-social. Viewing vaccine responses as normal, human reactions to a novel and scary life challenge gives us an opportunity to allow people to navigate emotions and reach decisions that are congruent and comfortable. We certainly need to do more in terms of how we communicate messages about vaccine access. While no-one should second- guess systems and ethical balancing acts, we need to consistently re-think vaccine algorithms and update them as the pandemic shifts and evolves. “In the end, anything that contributes to herd immunity and follows the rules should be the way to go.” Bioethicist Barron Lerner, says that the nature of a pandemic means that ‘fairness’ isn’t always possible. Ultimately it is vital that we engage with people from every side or we risk creating an echo-chamber. As Judith Ancer, co-founder of the Healthcare Workers Care Network (HWCN), says: “Treating people differently is not necessarily treating them differently.” References available upon request Issue 4 | 2021 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | 23 MHM