While the decision may sound perplexing at first, it’s actually a really good communication strategy to convince citizens of the vaccine’s safety.
Indonesia will be conducting its mass Covid-19 vaccination programme starting tomorrow (17 January 2021) but some have already skipped the queue and gotten innoculated. Recently, the Republic’s president, Joko Widodo televised himself getting a shot of the Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine.
One peculiar decision by the Republic however is the groups of people given priority access to the vaccine. Get this, among the first to be vaccinated in the country are social media influencers!
According to Reuters, these social media influencers are given priority vaccination, especially one Indonesian television personality, Raffi Ahmad, who has already gotten his shot before the millions of others in the country.
Raffi, who has a whopping 49.5 million followers on Instagram shared the video of him being vaccinated on his profile. It has since garnered more than 3 million views, while another post with him taking a photo with Jokowi after vaccination has gotten more than 1 million likes.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
The decision to include influencers and celebrities as the first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine alongside 1.5 million frontliners was actually an intentional decision by the Indonesian government. Senior health ministry official, Siti Nadia Tarmizi said that it was a deliberate government communications strategy in order to lift scepticism on the vaccine.
Many within the country have questioned whether the vaccine is safe and halal, or allowed under Islam. The government hoped that these influencers can use their, well, influence to convince people to take the vaccine.
Besides Raffi, some other famous personalities that will be publicly receiving the vaccine includes Ariel from the band Noah, and Risa Saraswati.
What do you guys think of Indonesia’s decision of prioritising influencers for their Covid-19 vaccine? Should we do the same thing in Malaysia? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
Also read: Video: Doctor Couldn’t Stop Trembling While Giving President Jokowi His Covid-19 Vaccine
