Communication Challenges Faced by UK Government in COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

This report discusses the communication challenges faced by the UK government in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and how they successfully dealt with them. It explains the general theories of organizational communication, barriers to communication preventing people from getting vaccinated, and government strategies to overcome these barriers. The report also provides information on eligibility criteria for vaccination and the success of the government's initiatives in convincing citizens to get vaccinated.

Business
Communication

Abstract
COVID-19 was emerged in the year 2019 which got spread in the whole world that resulted
in to lockdown restrictions in many countries. Government of different countries as a
solution for this pandemic created vaccine and launched various campaigns to inform
people about this. People face various challenges to understand the importance of vaccine.
The main purpose of this report is to explain about communication challenges and how
government of UK has successfully dealt with this issue.

Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
General theories of organisational communication................................................................1
Barriers of communication preventing people getting vaccinated.........................................2
Government strategies to overcome barriers..........................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
COVID-19 which is also called as Coronavirus is a disease whose first case was founded
in Wuhan, China in the year 2019. The virus got highly spread in the whole world which resulted
into ban from travelling and lock-down implications. This virus infects lungs which lead to many
deaths in the year 2020 and was declared as pandemic. Due to this pandemic personal and
professional lives of people got majorly impacted. Economies of various countries also get
severely influenced which resulted into lower GDP and employment rates. As a solution for this
virus government of several countries introduced vaccine such as COVISHIELD, SUPTNIK V,
COVAXIN and others (Kalogiannidis, 2020). But many citizens of the different countries avoid
or feared taking this vaccines as they thought that this will harm their health or could cause side
effects. The following report mainly focus on communication theories and challenges faced by
government of UK in order to make its citizens aware about importance of vaccine. This report
also contains success of initiatives taken by government to convince its citizens to get
vaccinated which must be informed to Prime minister about this campaign.
MAIN BODY
General theories of organisational communication
Effective communication plays a very important role in any organisation as it helps in
representing clear and concise information to every individual. Theories of organisational
communication explains criticality of effective communication within a company so that no
misunderstandings or conflicts could be created among people. The description about one of the
communication theory has been provided below:
Attribution theory
Attribution is defined as psychological term which is used to explain how a person
understand reasons of their daily experience that could be exterior or interior. The main purpose
of this theory is to explain how an individual explains cause of their behaviour or circumstances.
It is also utilised to to determine what information must be gathered so that a concluding
judgement could be made (Heo and Lee, 2018). This theory was explained by Fritz Heider who
examines that there is very strong need in an individual to understand temporary circumstances
by delegating them to disposition of steady components of environment. Under this theory he
explained two main ideas which became influential:
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Dispositional Attribution (Internal Cause):
This attribution explains cause behind behaviour of a person due to their interior
characteristics rather than focusing in exterior forces (Pikhart, 2018). It has been evaluated that
inner attribution is utilised to justify behaviour of other people rather than own of a person.
Situational Attribution (External Cause):
The procedure of explaining the reason of behaviour to several situations or
circumstances which are outside the control of a person rather than to focus on inner
characteristics. It states that when an individual tries justify their own behaviour they generally
make outside attributes such as environmental and situational components.
Barriers of communication preventing people getting vaccinated
Communication barriers are defined as the issued that people faced while communicating
or understanding information conveyed by another person. There are several barriers that people
experience which result into enhancing in conflicts or misunderstandings. Various
communication barriers were also faced by government of UK while convincing its citizens to
get vaccinated. The barriers faced by government are explained below:
Physical barriers: This obstacles emerges when there is great geographic distance
between communicator and receiver while conveying a message. Short distance is consider as
more convenient way to transfer the message as it requires less communication channels and
technology (Soto-Acosta, Del Giudice and Scuotto, 2018). In case of getting people vaccinated,
many of them faced difficult situation where they were unable to go to vaccination centres. This
is the main barrier which people faced which made them avoiding getting vaccine. Many of them
also experienced difficulty in booking slots for their vaccine as centres are far away from their
residence.
Emotional Barriers: This obstacle occurs when people face difficulty in expressing their
opinions or experience emotional issues while communicating with others. During the
vaccination campaign people were scared about what consequences will vaccine cause. Citizens
of the country also did not trusted vaccine as it was new and they thought that it could lead to
health issues. They also thought that they might become sick after taking dose of vaccine which
is the reason behind their ignorance towards taking vaccine.
Information Barriers: This obstacle is defined as inconvenient to represent information
in effective manner among people. In case of vaccine campaign, there is not much information
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available to people about its importance during initial days which prevent them from getting
vaccinated. There are various vaccine available in the market which were made by different
countries but as people were not aware about these vaccines, it resulted in lack of information
among them. While negative information regarding vaccines on social media and other media
channels also resulted in their neglecting towards vaccines.
Attitudinal Barriers: This obstruction is related to behaviour or attitude of people
towards any situation which prevent them to have effective communication with others
(Nadeem, Alvi and Iqbal, 2018) . During vaccination times, some people were negative about
these initiatives and also prevent others to take it. Some of people thought the can not get
infected by COVID-19 which further make them resistance towards not taking vaccine dose.
Cultural Barriers: This obstruction is associated with issues people face while
communicating with others due to language or other differences (Malyuga and McCarthy, 2018)
. In context to UK, people belongs to different cast and communities live, out of which some
people are unable to understand English language which prevent them from getting vaccinated.
They could not read information about vaccine in this language which further creates
misunderstanding among them regarding vaccine.
Government strategies to overcome barriers
Government of UK has taken many measures in response to COVID-19 through
organising several campaigns to inform people about importance of vaccine so that maximum
number of its citizen could get vaccinated. Because of these initiatives majority of people in the
country get their first dose of vaccine and some of them got fully vaccinated which resulted into
successful campaign. There are various reasons behind this success which are explained below:
 Government of the UK has developed their defence through pharmaceutical
interventions.
 Through identifying infected people and isolating them in order to stop further spread of
virus (Kalogiannidis and Papaevangelou, 2020).
 Motivating people to get vaccinated and take necessary precautions that could protect
them from getting infected. These precautions include always wear masks, use sanitizers,
avoid going out unnecessarily and others.
 By conducting PCR test on regular basis of the people coming from outside the country.
Through monitoring people who have mild symptoms related to this virus and providing
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emergency services to people.
 Government has also made mandatory for all the citizens to take vaccine so that they
could travel to other places.
Government of UK has also launched guidelines regarding vaccine information which includes
eligibility, age and other criteria which are essential to meet before getting vaccinated. These
information are provided below:
Citizens who are above the age of 18 could book their vaccine slots at various centres or
NHS would call them from where they can get their 1st and 2nd dose. NHS will reach out to
children aged between 16 and 17 in order to get them informed about their turn of vaccination.
Citizens who are at high risk of getting infected from this virus could get an official letter from
NHS stating that they are clinically ill and would get opportunity to book their appointment first.
People who have health problems such as heart diseases, lung infection, chronic kidney disease
and diabetes would be contacted by NHS for their vaccination dose (Coronavirus (COVID-19)
vaccination, 2020). And people who are working in front line could get their dose from nearest
vaccination centres.
Due to these initiatives taken by government, nearly 48 million people of the country got
their first dose of vaccine out of which almost nine in ten belongs to age group of 16 or above.
Out of these 48 million citizens, around 89% of them belong to age of above 16 years
(Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination, 2020). Almost 44 million people which is 81% of
population of the country got their first dose who are above the age of 16. The UK is providing
almost 74,000 second jab of vaccine to people every day. The main aim of this initiative is to
make people more aware about vaccine and convince them to get vaccinated (Coronavirus
(COVID-19) vaccination, 2020).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that COVID-19 has majorly impacted
physical and mental health of people. People are developing fear, misunderstandings and
confusion regarding this virus which results into more anxiety as well as stress among them.
From the above discussion it has been evaluated that people have faced various communication
barriers which prevented them from getting vaccinated. In order to make people aware about
importance of vaccine which is the only current solution for this virus, has launched several
campaigns.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kalogiannidis, S., 2020. Impact of Effective Business Communication on Employee
Performance. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 5(6).
Heo, M. and Lee, K.J., 2018. Chatbot as a new business communication tool: The case of naver
talktalk. Business Communication Research and Practice, 1(1), pp.41-45.
Pikhart, M., 2018, August. Technology enhanced learning experience in intercultural business
communication course: a case study. In International Symposium on Emerging
Technologies for Education (pp. 41-45). Springer, Cham.
Kalogiannidis, S. and Papaevangelou, O., 2020. Impact of Business Communication on the
Performance of Adult Trainees. International Journal of Academic Research in
Progressive Education and Development, 9(3), pp.213-222.
Malyuga, E. and McCarthy, M., 2018. English and Russian vague category markers in business
discourse: Linguistic identity aspects. Journal of pragmatics, 135, pp.39-52.
Nadeem, S., Alvi, A.K. and Iqbal, J., 2018. Performance indicators of e-logistic system with
mediating role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Journal of
Applied Economics & Business Research, 8(4), pp.217-228.
Soto-Acosta, P., Del Giudice, M. and Scuotto, V., 2018. Emerging issues on business innovation
ecosystems: the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for
knowledge management (KM) and innovation within and among enterprises. Baltic
Journal of Management.
[Online]
Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination. 2020. Online Available through:
<https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/?
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