Should kids be vaccinated? Brazil turns to online survey

BRASILIA, Brazil — As world leaders rely on public health specialists to inform their decisions about whether and how to vaccinate children against the coronavirus, Brazil’s government is asking the online public for guidance.

In recent weeks, President Jair Bolsonaro has staked out a position against immunizing kids aged between 5 and 11, and his administration took the unusual step of creating a platform that could validate a stance that is widely opposed by experts. Since his government on Dec. 23 unveiled its online questionnaire on the issue, the president’s supporters have been highly engaged on messaging apps trying to pressure parents to swing the results.

One widely shared post Wednesday on the Telegram group ‘Bolsonaro Army,’ which has about 37,000 members, said the vaccine is experimental and suggested that receiving shots could be more harmful than getting infected, although several studies have shown the opposite is true. It also included a link to the government’s survey, which other people were posting along with instructions to relay to friends and family.

The rally for resistance resembles online behavior observed earlier this month, which catapulted Bolsonaro to the top of the heap in TIME magazine’s readers poll for Person of the Year, David Nemer, an expert on Brazil’s far-right groups on messaging apps, told The Associated Press. Bolsonaro garnered about one-quarter of the more than 9 million votes — nearly triple that of the runner-up, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The magazine’s editors instead chose Elon Musk as 2021 Person of the Year.

This time, however, online efforts are aimed at something far more significant than bestowing an honorific on the president. The survey, which concludes Jan. 2, stands to shape vaccination policy in Latin America’s most populous nation, home to 20 million kids aged 5 to 11. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga has said they will soon be eligible for vaccination, but survey results will help determine guidelines including whether shots could only be administered with parental consent and a doctor’s prescription. “This is a tool of democracy, it widens the discussion on the topic and it will bring more ease for parents so they can take their children to immunize against COVID-19,” Queiroga said.

Health experts, for their part, are aghast. Some Brazilian states’ health secretariats have already pledged to ignore any health ministry guidelines on childhood vaccination if based on the public consultation. Gonzalo Vecina, founder and director of Brazil’s health regulator between 1999 and 2003, says public consultation on vaccines is “unprecedented”.

“Bolsonaro is against the vaccine and his employee, the health minister, believes that health is a matter of public opinion. It is a spurious and nonsensical approach,” Vecina told the AP. “If only deniers send their opinion in the public consultation, is the government going to say that the vaccine doesn’t have to be used?”