Polish immigrants skeptical about Covid-19 vaccination in UK
16:32
The quite skeptical attitude of Poles towards immunization against Covid-19 is also visible among those living in Great Britain and given their number, this may be a serious threat to the vaccination program. The author of the text in The Spectator, Olenka Hamilton, who is half Polish herself, cites data showing the distrust of Polish residents towards the Covid-19 vaccine, as well as their growing reluctance to all vaccinations, and writes that the same applies to Poles living in the UK.
She pointed out that discussions are ongoing in the UK on how to persuade members of ethnic minorities to get vaccinated, while immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe - about half of whom are Poles – are the second most skeptical group about vaccination. She explained that a large part of the Polish community in Great Britain has little contact with the local media, because it watches mainly Polish TV, accesses Polish websites, maintains contacts either with families in the country or with other Poles, and this is very conducive to receiving and further disseminating conspiracy theories about the harmfulness of vaccines.
Especially since distrust towards the government, media, large corporations, especially pharmaceutical ones, is rooted in Polish DNA.
As the quoted Polish activist and writer Wiktor Moszczyński said, if a large number of Poles in Great Britain do not get vaccinated, it may result in a situation in which the entire Polish community will begin to be perceived as carriers of the coronavirus, which in turn may lead to heating up anti-Polish sentiment in tabloids.
