Slovak Minister of Health Kamil Šaško considers it necessary to communicate about vaccination and other conflicting topics with people who have a different opinion.because otherwise radicalization occurs. He added that he himself is trying for such communication. On Thursday, at the Globsec Forum security conference in Prague, he said that disinformation campaigns about vaccination are a problem especially in Central and Eastern Europe. According to him, Slovakia still has some work to do in solving this issue, reports TASR in Prague.
At the conference, Šaško discussed with the director of the Estonian Public Health Authority Birgit Laova and William H. Marks from the Harvard Business School in Boston. They agreed that communication about vaccination is important. According to Lao, the problem is that governments often don’t want to invest in it, and few people want to be “vaccination influencers”.
Šaško responded that Slovakia now has a specific situation in this regard, because one of the government representatives is completely against vaccination. “And I as a minister – although I don’t consider myself an influencer – I run campaigns, I try. It is very important to understand that the world is not black and white and you have to be able to communicate even with those who we think are not right,” he pointed out.
According to him, if people do not communicate with each other, radicalization and extremism will occur in various fields, including medicine or specifically vaccination. According to him, there is a direct connection between trust in the system and, for example, vaccination. “In Slovakia, this percentage is huge. It is important not to ignore it,” he pointed out.
According to him, it is no coincidence that most disinformation campaigns about vaccination occur in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, not, for example, in Scandinavia or the Netherlands. “Some countries in the mentioned regions (Central and Eastern Europe, note TASR) are already better off, but some still have work to do, including Slovakia,” he added.
The discussants also talked about whether the world has learned enough from the COVID-19 pandemic and whether European countries are better prepared for a possible next pandemic. They agreed that although they have done a lot since the end of the pandemic, they are not completely ready. “What the pandemic has taught us is that we know much better what needs to be done, but then putting it into practice is a different story,” remarked the Jester.
Marks pointed out that the more time that has passed since the end of the pandemic, the less countries are investing in preparedness. According to him, it is likely that the next pandemic will occur much sooner than people think. If European countries do not immediately solve some of the problems either in the supply chain or in their own production of medicines and materials, it will be a problem. He drew attention to the fact that not all European countries define medical equipment or its production as critical infrastructure. However, according to him, it is a key part of the defense.
Šaško also agreed with this and cited the construction of a new military hospital in Prešov as an example. He called it a creative model to shift part of the two percent GDP defense spending to civilian projects. “Thanks to that, we’re building a brand new hospital. You have to be creative, because there’s also rigidity – how to defend and explain why you’re not buying bombs or whatever, but you’re building a hospital – but because it’s NATO’s eastern wing,” explained the Slovak approach.
In recent weeks, the project of the Prešov hospital has been complicated by findings about the low quality of the load-bearing concrete columns, many of which do not meet the required load-bearing capacity. The construction was therefore suspended and the Minister of Defense Robert Kaliňák announced that several columns will have to be demolished. The construction will thus be prolonged and more expensive.
