Iran’s coronavirus catastrophe and why the Indian government wants people to put butter up their noses
Welcome to the Infodemic. We are tracking how disinformation is shaping the global pandemic response. Today — from vaccine news that didn’t make the headlines to increasing levels of Covid-19 chaos in Iran — here are this week’s narratives, which have grabbed our attention and deserve yours.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s announcement that their vaccine is 90% effective in clinical trials has been heralded as a groundbreaking achievement — but the developing world found little cause for celebration. Because the Pfizer vaccine relies on mRNA technology, doses must be continually kept at temperatures below minus 75 degrees Celsius. This renders distribution a logistical nightmare, even in wealthy countries. But, for nations like India and Pakistan, prone to regular heatwaves and power outages, it makes it virtually impossible to guarantee access to the vaccine, particularly in rural areas. In a recent interview, Indian billionaire vaccine manufacturer Adar Poonawalla described the prospect of delivering vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage to the developing world as a “joke.” Pakistani health officials are sounding similarly pessimistic.
With vaccine prospects slim, millions across India will keep looking for alternatives. The country’s Ministry of AYUSH, which promotes and regulates alternative and traditional medicine, is there to help. The government department, which has pushed pseudoscientific remedies since the outset of the pandemic, has now released a 217-page document recommending how to integrate Ayurveda and yoga into India’s treatment of Covid-19. It includes gargling with warm water, putting ghee in your nostrils and inhaling steam. The state’s promotion of traditional remedies is having a real impact on the ability of frontline health workers to combat the pandemic. Doctors say those affected by the virus often delay going to hospitals for treatment, opting instead to rely on home remedies.
Elsewhere, the race for vaccines continues. Uzbekistan, which ordered 35 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine earlier this year but is still waiting on its shipment, has now turned to China for help, recruiting 5,000 volunteers to take part in a vaccine trial. Meanwhile, Brazil’s health regulator paused trials for China’s new Covid-19 vaccine, after a subject died. Once it emerged that the cause of death had been suicide, rather than anything connected to the vaccine, trials resumed. Nevertheless, this led to a slew of false claims on Brazilian social media that the vaccine was deadly. President Jair Bolsonaro, who opposes the vaccine on the grounds that his pet cure, hydroxychloroquine, is preferable, yesterday speculated that the explanation of suicide was untrue. Conspiracy theories and anti-vax propaganda have also stagnated the Chinese trial in Pakistan, which is struggling to find enough volunteers to take part.