The Road to Immunity: Leaders and their Role in the Vaccination Effort
As it is revealed that Donald Trump received his COVID-19 vaccine in secret earlier this year, Samantha Cronin takes a look at how different leaders are playing their part in the vaccine rollout.
It seemed strange to me that the man whose entire leadership style was predicated upon an aggressive, juvenile competitiveness wasn’t shouting from the roof of the White House that “he was first” to get the COVID-19 vaccine. When it was announced that Donald Trump had received his vaccine in early January, I was unsurprised. The lack of shouting about it however? Shocking. How does this decision compare to that of other world leaders? Are some responses superior to others? And what can we take from The Donald’s relative hush on the matter?
Scott Morrison did what I believed that Donald Trump would do. On the first day of the rollout, he was there with his sleeve rolled up in anticipation. The video of his jab was broadcast on every major news platform in Australia - his vaccine marked the official start of the nation’s largest vaccination campaign in history.
To some, Morrison’s very public jab would have been just the reminder they needed, while to others, it represented ‘queue jumping’. Why did Morrison, who does not belong to the 1a group of his government’s own design, get the vaccine ahead of those who do belong to 1a? Greg Hunt’s response was clear, ‘the research shows that people want to see that if we [politicians] believe it’s safe, then that will give them greater confidence.’ Given trust levels in the vaccine could be higher here in Australia, there’s value in this sentiment.
Across the ditch, an alternative approach is being taken. Jacinda Adern has maintained that she will get her vaccine when the group she fits into gets theirs. Leaders who choose this form of leadership do not reap the rewards of that initial boost in confidence that watching an important public figure get vaccinated gives a rollout, but they trade this for confidence in the rollout programme, and other potential long term benefits including improved public image. This approach seems well suited to a state with little community transmission, but may not be suitable for states in desperate need of a quick, high uptake of the vaccine to curb infection rates. Morrison’s approach may be preferred in the latter.
So back to Trump - into which of these categories does he fit best? I would argue, as with most things Trump related, he is in a category of his own. Like Morrison, he received the vaccine early, a long way ahead of when he would have received it had he not been the soon to be evicted tenant of The White House. But unlike Morrison, he had no intention of bolstering public opinion of the vaccines. Instead, he continued to play the long game.
Despite what many would regard as a presidency that no one could look back on fondly, Trump left office with a large group of die-hard supporters. Given that 47% of these supporters would refuse any COVID-19 vaccine offered to them, a public jab was off the table. So, in what is perhaps the most predictable move of his presidency, Donald Trump chose to act in service of himself at the end. Despite his repeated claims that the virus was “no big deal”, by getting the vaccine in quiet he both protected himself from the very real threat of COVID-19 and retained support for a comeback in 2024.
I don’t believe that there is a one size fits all conclusion to this discussion, and if there is, we won’t be able to see it until this pandemic is behind us. What we can conclude however, is that to stand with your country in a time of massive anxiety and bring a sense of calm, of trust, and hope is a genuine display of leadership - regardless of whether you are the very first or the very last to get the vaccine. To run off into the night with your vaccine while your country suffers damage that was spurred on by the dangerous claims you made, however, is nothing but cowardly.