Transcripts For LINKTV Inside Story 20240711

Denying that the president rejected talks with the tigre and leaders. He said he would only speak to representatives operating legally in the region. A mass rally has been held in iraqs capital in a show of support following sadrs bid to run in parliamentary elections. Thousands gathered in tower rear square. In southern iraq, three people were killed. Around 50 people were also injured. With fewer than 60 days until president elect joe biden takes office, the u. S. Justice department has scheduled several federal executions. Biden is against the Death Penalty and says he will work to end it. The changed rule is expected to draw criticism from antideath advocates. Four French Police officers have been detained after video emerged showing them beating a black music producer in paris. The assault has sparked outrage towards a police force already under scrutiny for heavyhanded tactics. The Saudi Led Coalition in yemen has carried out a series of air raids in and around the capital. Several areas were targeted. There are reports that one person has been killed. Saudi arabia and the uae intervened in the war five years ago, in an effort to restore the government which was ousted of power by the houthis. I will have another bulletin for you on al jazeera after inside story. Stay with us. Should covid19 vaccines be mandatory . Drug manufacturers are getting closer to releasing vaccines, but they suggest some people arent willing to take the shot. This is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program. I am imran khan. Scientists are racing to have covid19 vaccines approved for wide use. Several drugmakers have released promising results, and that is raising hopes that vaccinations can begin soon and bring this pandemic under control. The Health Crisis has largely grounded the global aviation industry. The head of australias National Airline qantas says vaccines should be mandatory for international travel. Alan joyce says passengers may be asked to provide proof of inoculation. We are looking at changing our conditions to say, for international travelers, we will ask people to have a vaccination before they get on the aircraft. Whether you need that domestically, we will have to see. For people going in out of the country, we believe that is a necessity. Imran it appears fewer people are willing to be vaccinated. A World Economic survey across 15 countries found 77 of people would get a covid19 vaccine. That is now down to 73 . One third of those surveyed are worried about potential side effects and say Clinical Trials are happening too fast. We dont know whether these vaccines provide a longlasting protection. Do they protect against serious cases . We dont need a vaccine that prevents a mild cough and fever. We need a vaccine that prevents serious cases like pneumonia. I am not planning to take the vaccine. There are too many questions about why. We are just reading what is going on with the vaccine and who is going to take it. I dont want to be vaccinated at all. Possibly i wouldve chosen the russian vaccine, but at the moment, i didnt even think about it. Much depends on a persons immunity. Imran some World Leaders including britains Prime Minister insist people wont be forced to take the shot. There will be no compulsory vaccination. That is not the way we do things in this country. We think it is a good idea, but i rejected the propaganda of the antisirs antivaxers. Everybody should get a vaccine as soon it is available according to the advice of the drug and immunization policies. Imran lets bring in our panel. In st. Louis, and Infectious Disease physician at Washington University school of medicine. In johannesburg, professor of vax elegy and a member of the south Africa Ministerial Advisory Committee on covid19, and in london, a senior lecturer and Global Health advisor at University Colleges London School of pharmacy. A warm welcome to you all. Id like to begin in the u. S. We hear so much about people being concerned, frightened, suspicious of taking vaccines, but we also are talking about perhaps making covid19 mandatory. Do you think mandatory is the way forward . Is that the way to go . Given the current climate we find ourselves in the United States and the difficulty we have had in getting standardized leadership and therefore for the public to follow the Public Health guidance, it will be very difficult to mandate this vaccine without a lot of pushback. Unfortunately, this has become a highly politicized issue. Mandatory in my mind will make half the population feel like their freedoms are encroached upon. Imran but this is a Public Health issue. Surely it is up to the government to explain this properly and suggest guidelines, if not making it mandatory, but at the very least, if we want to get out of this, we have to take this vaccine. As you know, the timing couldnt be worse. We are currently in a leadership vacuum. President elect biden and Vice President elect harris will not be in power until february, and even then, they will be starting from the beginning with a country that is divided. Although this is clearly a Public Health issue and should have been treated as such, the current surveys show that again the country is split, and the reason we havent been able to get this under control in a meaningful way is because of inconsistencies in that way, and those of us in the medical and Public Health officials having to battle this politicized issue. Imran it is a politicized issue in the u. K. Even Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been speaking about whether it should be mandatory to take the vaccine or not. Do you think mandatory is the way forward . Boris johnson and his government in the u. K. Have made it clear they will not be pursuing a mandatory policy around vaccination, and historically, that has been challenging. If we can galvanize communities, if we have consistent messaging from the government, if there is transparency, that is going to have far more positive effects on public trust. It is not just the u. S. Facing this wave of polarization. We see that globally there is a shortage of trust, and that feeds into these perceptions about whether we will want to use certain tactics to boost vaccination rates. The other issue to take into consideration here is people who are vaccine hesitant will be doing their own research about this vacci and go across the internet and find all sorts of conflicting information, and that may feed into their beliefs around vaccines. Misinformation and being in this age of social media, more of big tech needs to get involved and step into their roles in terms of flagging misinformation, things that are not factual. It has to be government alongside technology companies, social media, as well as our pharmacist physicians working with communities to communicate the value of vaccines. If we take that approach versus mandatory, we might be effective. Imran its more about getting the information out there. I want to bring in our guest in johannesburg. It is slightly different when it comes to the case of south africa and poorer nations. The rich nations have placed orders for these vaccines, and the u. S. And eu and u. K. Have massive orders already placed, but in a country like south africa, its not a case of whether the vaccine should be mandatory or not. Its a case of whether you can get the vaccine. Exactly. I think we are having a discussion about whether we should have a vaccine or not in general. That is the challenge that we face in africa, and it goes back to what we experienced in 2009 with the swine. We received only a limited quantity after the pandemic had passed. We must be careful that history doesnt repeat itself in that access to a vaccine at a reasonable price and quantity for africa is pretty much going to a core occur after there has been a huge amount of infection, which wont be helpful. Imran the astrazeneca and Oxford University vaccine is said to be easier to store. It is said to be a reasonable price point, and they are promising they wont make a profit off the pandemic and will deliver to the continent. Do you trust them when they say things like that . I think that particular vaccine we need to be careful in terms of the manner in which the vaccine is being produced. In terms of the regulatory requirements for the vaccine, the vaccine done on the u. K. Population, it exceeds the regulatory requirements. Whether the vaccine efficacy is 60 or 90 , it can become available at a reasonable price. It could have huge benefits in a country such as south africa and elsewhere. In all likelihood, those vaccines are only going to become available to africa probably towards the end of 2021. Getting a vaccine with modest efficacy, its not what we want as the first choice, but it might be the only chance we have to have an impact on the pandemic. Imran thats a crucial word you are using, choice. Dr. Davis in st. Louis, it is about choice, isnt it . It is about whether you should take the vaccine, and that should be a choice that you make. Are we informed enough, or is that too much information when it comes to the internet about making that choice . That was mentioned earlier people are going online and researching themselves and finding either outright lies or misinformation. Absolutely. Information in the u. S. Is something that is readily available. The issue here that a lot of people overlook is that this is disproportionately affecting a black and brown communities who have a longstanding history of mistrust based on well documented on practices that have happened and ongoing institutional and systemic racism. That is the hugest barrier. With information readily available and with an extra layer of mistrust, that barrier is not easily overcome. You cannot manufacture trust at the tail end of a trial. There needs to be funding, policy, and more importantly, partnership with existing organizations who have done this work for decades. We see this model employed with People Living with hiv. I sit on the fasttrack Cities Initiative in st. Louis where we Bring Community partners to the table, the city, the county, and those relationships should be leveraged because those are the people who are trusted, but you cannot manufacture trust, regardless of how much information you have or how well you tried to disseminate it. Imran i see you nodding your head in agreement. Is there a similar communitybased approach that you think could work globally . This is something that could be tailored to every community. Each will have their own unique needs, and even during the ebola crisis going back to 2015 and sierra leone and liberia, they deployed anthropologists to tackle some of the cultural aspects of the Public Health guidance that was at that time being treated with mistrust, so it is something that governments have to get a lot better at doing, and its wonderful to hear of all of the action that is going on in the u. S. And st. Louis. In agreement with our previous panelist, it will take a lot longer for those attitudes to change. In fact, even the manufacturing of the vaccine, by the time we get it distributed, it will take longer to change those longheld beliefs, and that is again because of some of the historical aspects of this. If we look at the wider history of vaccinations, this has been one of the most powerful lifesaving tools that have extended our lifespan. If we look at it as a whole, hesitancy can threaten to undo so much good we have made over years. People often forget and dont remember what it is, and the consequences of allowing this disease to spread it doesnt happen naturally. We didnt develop heard immunity towards many diseases, including yellow fever, cholera, and many others. We look at the evidence. We heard from the Australian Medical Association that people who develop measles are 10,000 times more likely to get more logical damage based from the infection than any vaccination. Imran the counter argument to that is with other vaccines, there was time. There was development. There was testing. They had to be regulated. They had time to be able to do that before they were brought to market. The argument is this vaccine has been rushed to market, and people have been concerned they were not properly tested. That is concerning. There is a more nuanced approach towards vaccine hesitancy. These are people who may have had all their vaccinations, generally are provaccine, but as you say, concerned about the development timeline. Our world has screeched to a halt. All of the research and pharmaceutical companies and scientists have come together to focus on a singular problem with more resources, more support, and also a more collaborative spirit than any in history. If we go back to the beginning, it took chinese scientists a matter of days to get that genome digitally mapped and from then into the phase one Clinical Trials. Thats a world record. When it comes to what happens in the trial, no Safety Standards were cut. No shortcuts were made. Everything was done the way we would have done in any other circumstance. It is really important to say that there have been no compromises on safety. There have been no shortcuts. In the u. K. , our regulatory body, the u. S. Fda has to do a final check on the data, and all of that has to be scrutinized. The eyes of the world will be on this data once it becomes available to the public. It will be the most highly scrutinized Clinical Trial to date, and i think it needs to be in order to not damage trust any further. As i mentioned earlier, it is essential that we do not compromise any of the safety because the damage that we see in the long term will be such that it will be almost irreversible. Imran the astrazenecaOxford University study will be published in the lancet. Do think once transparency is in place, once we see the data, do you think that will help . Certainly. I think peerreviewed is absolutely essential. I think one of the challenges we face with many of the vaccines is Many Companies may claim results before it is peerreviewed. That is a challenge. That has led to some discord in the Scientific Community as well as the public. I think there will be a different perspective in terms of the astrazeneca vaccine as an example. The public can be confident this is not one or two Companies Pursuing a particular agenda, but the data coming out. To scientific scrutiny. Imran dr. Davis, is there anything about this timeline that concerns you, the speed at which these vaccines could potentially get to market . That does not concern me. People need to realize we have been manufacturing vaccines for years and years, and multiple checks and balances are put in place. Ive talked about the uniqueness of the situation. That uniqueness need not be confused as us dropping standards or trying to dilute the process. There are over 200 companies and entities working on this vaccine. On top of that, those of us who stand for marginalized populations have been involved. I had a baby in the middle of a pandemic, but it was important for me to use my voice, my pen, and my expertise to be a part of this process. There is so much more scrutiny, so much more at stake, and those of us in the Scientific Community would never back this, whenever, on a show and speak like this if we did not believe those standards were in place. There are review boards reviewing this data as a lot of these trials are ending, and i am confident that once that has been done, this transparency that we crave and the ability to move to this next step is key. What i stand for is there are resources that can still be prioritized in the places i think that they need to be so we do not leave behind populations that have been left behind. I am born and raised in zimbabwe. Im extraordinarily sensitive to the topic globally, as i am for black and brown communities. Imran at what point does the vaccine become ineffective if enough people refuse to take it . Say it is 6040 of people not taking it does that render the herd vaccine herd immunity, the vaccine argument irrelevant . Looking from a Public Health perspective, if there is a significant portion of the publishing that has not been vaccinated, but on the individual level, it will prevent infection. If we want to achieve herd immunity, then we are looking at roughly 60 , 70 of the population. That doesnt mean 60 or 70 of the population needs to be vaccinated. It appears that up to one third of adults were actually infected through natural infection. In light of the evidence right now, that is probably inducing some level of immunity. That is the south african example. I think its what they have experienced the first time around. Imran i do want to come to my other guest quickly. We are running out of time. Very quickly, do you envisage a situation where if significant numbers of the population in the u. K. Decide not to take the vaccine, but the government will have to make it mandatory . I think this is a stance that the current u. K. Government is firmly against in terms of making it mandatory. It can further create or fuel these conspiracy theories about vaccines even further. I think there are many other approaches. We heard from other panelists about the effectiveness of working not just at the top government level, but getting grassroots communities involved, as well, and every option should be exhausted before we move towards mandatory vaccines. We know in the current political climate, that is not something our population feels they are ready to accept. It will take a lot of work with Healthcare Professionals and others in the community to communicate the value of vaccines. Taking this mandatory approach may be effective in countries like china, but we have to individualize approaches based on culture and geographical region. Imran i want to thank all of our guests, and thank you for watching. You can see the program again any time by visiting our website. For further discussion, go to our facebook page. You can join the conversation on twitter. For me imran khan and the entire team in doha, goodbye for now. Aiuog