How to vaccinate Southern Manitoba:
(a long thread)

Don’t shame and blame.

Don’t call us the Bible Belt.

Assume there are more vaccine hesitant folk than anti-vax folk. Aim for the hesitant folk first.

Remember there is no silver bullet here. It’s going to be long, arduous work, and each piece of the campaign is only going to change a few people’s minds. That’s okay, because those few are going to talk to their friends and neighbours.

I’ll start with non-religious ideas.
1. Get local leaders of things that we love to be the face of the campaign. These folks are our neighbours, our kids play soccer together, and we have mutual friends. We trust each other.

2. Make the message of “Miss the things you love? Here’s the quickest way to safely get them back for everyone.”

3. Here’s what we love.

a. We love supporting local businesses. Get the Chamber of Commerce.

b. We love supporting immigrants. Get Eastman immigration on board.

c. We love hockey games. Get the Pistons on board, and for a cardio exercise, make their players blanket every house with a flyer saying, “We miss you, you miss us, and the quickest way for us to be back together is if we all get vaccinated.”

d. Get all the amateur sports folk and active living folk involved: Lifeguards talking about aquasizes, gymnastics and dance leaders talking about full classes and performances, old men talking potlucks after stick curling.

e. We love supporting the local arts scene. Get Steinbach Arts Council on Board. Get the piano teachers to talk about recitals.

f. We love Summer in the City. Get them on board.

g. We love our local schools. Get them to communicate that the quickest way back to field trips, band/choir concerts, and high school sports is to get vaccinated.

Also, get some grade 12s to say, “I missed my grad this year. Please make sure my little sister doesn’t miss hers next year. Get vaccinated.”

h. We generally love our local politicians. And the police. And the fire fighters. They are our neighbours. Get them front and centre.

i. Highlight the voices of local health care workers. They’re the ones who have birthed our babies, helped us say goodbye to our loved ones, stitched up our kids and give us our medicine. We trust them.

j. Give every high school science teacher a 1-2 day lesson plan going over the science behind the current vaccines, so the kids will love it and appreciate it and talk about how cool it is (especially the mRNA vaccines!).

That’s the low lying fruit. Now let’s get religious.

a. We love summer camp, so get the leaders of summer camp to say: "We miss your kids. We love your teens as staff. We’ve already missed two summers, let’s not miss a third. Get vaccinated."

b. We love going to church. Frame the campaign that you want to allow us to freely gather while staying safe (aka, not kill each other), and the quickest way to do that is for us all to get vaccinated.

c. You can also pull some heart strings by talking about Christmas Eve concerts, Sunday School, Sunrise Services on Easter morning, youth groups, etc. Make it personal and relevant.

d. Here too, local leaders will help. Set up a 3-5 person team of local pastors, doctors, and maybe even a politician or two (we seem to trust/love KG here, so I’d go with that one), and send them personally to every church to talk face to face to the pastors and lay leadership.

e. Use our language: “Vaccines help us to love our neighbours as ourselves.” “Help us to protect the vulnerable in our communities.” “Blessing our community by keeping people safe.” Make buttons saying “Churches caring for their neighbours. #vaccinate ”

f. Host vaccine Q and A’s with local doctors (go Zoom!), and offer each church their own evening. We know each other, and seeing faces we trust on Zoom will help put us at ease.

And two final ideas:
1. Get a few Winnipeg Jets to say “We want you back in the stands, but that ain’t happening unless you get vaccinated.”

2. This is maybe my best idea. Go to every rural community, set up a vaccination tent, and raffle off a quad, dirt bike or snowmobile for everyone ages 18-40 who gets vaccinated.

Will this take months? Yes. Will it take money? Yes. Will it happen better with paid staff running it? Yes. Will it work? Maybe.

But again, if people get vaccinated primarily because people they know and trust are getting vaccinated, if each of these ideas results in a few more people getting vaccinated, hopefully there will be a large ripple effect.

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