Ecuador’s ‘anti-vaccine’ movement uses encrypted chats and flyers to spread their ideas

Rosalba Meneses is concerned about vaccines against COVID-19. Due to genetics, she has varicose veins and that is why she is wary of getting vaccinated. She says that several of her relatives, especially her maternal aunts, have experienced discomforts such as headaches, exhaustion, and body aches. She assures that this is due to vaccination.

Rosalba is 38 years old, she is an environmental engineer and coordinates the collective “Light and Freedom” in Cuenca, who opposes the COVID-19 vaccine. “We are not anti-vaccines, we disagree with these vaccines that are in the experimental phase and have not complied with the corresponding protocols,” she says.

The World Health Organization (WHO) explains that “only vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective in preventing disease will be approved for use.” Until February of this year eight vaccines were authorized. Among them are those of the pharmaceutical Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/Oxford and Sinovac that are used in Ecuador. While Cansino was approved by the Agency for Regulation, Control and Sanitary Surveillance of Ecuador (Arcsa).

Rosalba also points out that the effectiveness of vaccines is questioned in the group, since people who receive their doses still get infected.

Given this, the epidemiologist David Larreátegui points out that the effectiveness of vaccines depends on their ultimate goal. “If the goal is to reduce mortality and hospitalizations, vaccines are effective. If, on the other hand, the goal is to prevent the population from getting infected, the efficacy is not the same, but ultimately that is not the goal of the COVID-19 vaccine, ″ he says.

Just over 34% of the population of Ecuador has the complete scheme, that is, they have received the first reinforcement, according to official figures as of April 20. The provinces that register the lowest percentage of complete vaccination are Los Ríos (18%), Santa Elena (20%) and Morona Santiago (21%).

Advance of vaccination against COVID-19 in Ecuador, live

For microbiologist Paúl Cárdenas, research professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, although anti-vaccine movements have not had a massive presence in the country, government communication has been so bad that the vaccination plan has not had the expected results.

One of the errors, he points out, was that for a long time the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) considered having only two doses without the booster to be a complete vaccination. “The government’s idea that one is fully vaccinated when they receive two doses, when in other countries the complete schedule contemplates three (doses), has had a negative impact in the sense that many people who have received the first two doses do not want to wear the third.

Just since Monday of last week, by resolution of the MSP, In Ecuador, the schedule with the first booster included is considered complete vaccination.. However, this Ministry ordered that to enter a public place -such as a shopping center, a restaurant or a cinema-, it is necessary to present the card with only two doses.

Cristina Aldaz, institutional manager of the MSP Vaccination Plan, affirms that the communication of this portfolio has always been clear and that the conceptions of those who oppose vaccination are counteracted with information about the disease and about vaccination points and schedules.

‘Decide on one’s own body’

Rosalba points out that the objective of the “Luz y Libertad” collective is to promote the free will of each person. “We have come together to enforce our constitutional rights, such as the right to choose how we live and treat any type of disease,” she says.

Are almost 400 members who actively participate in demonstrations in which, with posters and flyersmarch in order to “instruct people about the articles of the Constitution where the rights to life, non-discrimination and not to be part of genetic experiments are delimited.”

The seedlings take place every 15 days and begin in the Calderón Park, in the historic center of Cuenca. They do this because, according to her, “the authorities have handled the information in such an arbitrary way that they have confused the population.”

In addition, the group maintains communication with groups from other countries. At the regional level, they share criteria with the Bolivian organization Revolutionary Humanist Actiona political movement that, as it mentions on its website, is dedicated to fighting capitalism, communism and parties of all tendencies.

The research professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito Luis Espinosa Goded, comments that “it is essential to let citizens exercise their freedom of rights.” For this reason, he criticizes the fact that the vaccination card is still required to enter some places. “It is unacceptable that those who have made decisions about their own body and life are discriminated against,” he comments.

On the other hand, Larreátegui assures that much freedom of decision has been given, because “if patients do not give their consent, it is impossible to vaccinate. At the end of the day, they are the ones who have the decision of what they want to do or not with their body.

He adds that not getting vaccinated generates a collective health problem because those who do not become patients with a high risk of becoming infected and infecting others, which puts the entire health system at risk due to the possible collapse of hospitals.

With this, the epidemiologist Alberto Narváez agrees, who assures that with more vaccination, “we can reduce deaths, transmission as much as possible and we could return to normal social and work life in the not so distant future.”

‘The right to free mobility’

Although Rosalba has not been physically or verbally attacked, she remembers a time when members of the collective they were forbidden to enter a commercial place in Cuenca because they did not want to present the vaccination card.

Another similar case was that of one of her colleagues who, wanting to carry out a procedure in a public institutionaccess was not allowed. However, for this case, a claim was filed with the Ombudsman’s Office and the woman was able to do the diligence for her a few days later.

On another occasion, he says, people on the street verbally attacked a person from “Luz y Libertad” for not wanting to wear a mask in a public space.

For these reasons, Rosalba avoids places that could cause this type of setback due to her point of view regarding vaccination.

Espinosa defends this position by pointing out that “the State can promote vaccination for those who want it, but it cannot discriminate against those who do not”, referring to the impediment to enter places that require the presence of the vaccination card.

For his part, Cárdenas mentions that place restrictions on those who do not get vaccinated it is an additional resource to convince people to take the doses. “Many of the problems we had have been because people got infected at the same time and the health systems collapsed. Unfortunately a lot of people passed away and we cannot afford to go through this again,” she comments.

censored arguments

Rosalba says that on several occasions the same digital platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) They have removed content that promotes non-vaccination, based on policies that violate the community standards of these social networks.

Facebook, for example, established since the beginning of the pandemic protection guidelines and policy updates as a result of COVID-19.

“We remove misinformation during public health emergencies if public health authorities determine that the information is false and likely to contribute directly to risks of imminent physical harm, including risks of contagion or spread of a harmful disease or associated vaccine refusal” , can be read in the policies of this social network.

One of its points indicates that all content that has been denied by health authorities such as the WHO or the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention will be removed from the platform.

Facebook automatically removes posts who maintain that natural immunity is safer than that acquired by a vaccine; that ingredients in vaccines are toxic, deadly, poisonous, or dangerous; that vaccination develops certain diseases; or that urge that the use of vitamin C is as effective as vaccines.

In this regard, the sociologist Oly Calderón states that censorship is a control mechanism from which, over time, poles of radicalization emerge that materialize in groups with inflexible postures.

Rosalba says that they have found in applications that encrypt messages, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, the way to share information about vaccination without being penalized. For this reason, through groups of this application, he shares, together with his colleagues, information, news and studies on the effect of vaccination in other countries.

For Espinosa, censoring arguments against vaccination when, due to the ease of access to technology, the population is exposed to a great diversity of information, generates an opposite effect, that is, it does not silence them but rather generates uncertainty around this censorship and various theories that question why it has been eradicated.

Given this, it resolves that “what must be done is to allow arguments for and against to be presented freely, and the one that seems best to each citizen will end up winning.”

In this regard, Cárdenas recommends be very critical of the sources from which information is extracted and prioritize what is shared by those who work in the field of medicine or scientific research, since he considers that denying scientific evidence is one of the greatest biases that currently exists regarding information.

“We should be guided by experts who are producing or working analyzing information about COVID and vaccines all the time,” he suggests, specifying that those who are not fully dedicated to research, “may have good intentions, but they are not up to date with information scientific, so you have to be very careful with the sources from which you get information”. (I)