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A government supporter has called for Road Safety Authority-style publicity on Covid-19 that will surprise people because the current awareness campaign is “outdated, predictable, ineffective.”
Fine Gael TD Emer Higgins said the message of washing hands and covering the face “is not hard enough” and does not reach the entire population.
The Dublin Mid-West TD highlighted a Scottish campaign showing “an asymptomatic woman accidentally infects her grandfather, with Covid-19. The ad shows the virus, as visible green gunk that transfers from your hands to the cupboard that you open to grab the tea bags you use to make a cup of tea.
The ad shows him a goodbye hug oblivious to the damage he’s done and closes with a stern warning. “Don’t pass the coronavirus on to your loved ones.”
In Australia, very forceful 30-second ads show a young man who infected his mother in ICU with Covid-19. He says “we visited her a few weeks ago, but she didn’t know she had Covid, she had no symptoms.
But in Ireland, “after months of turmoil, months of research and development, and sadly more than 2,000 deaths,” Ms. Higgins asked “what is our message today?
“Wash your hands, cough on your elbow, and download the Covid tracking app – outdated, predictable, ineffective. We can do better than that, ”he said.
He also told Dáil that HSE’s social media strategy relied heavily on Twitter with 1,300 posts, but only 10 on TikTok. Ms. Higgins questioned whether “our entire audience is being reached” on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat.
Health Department Minister of State Mary Butler acknowledged that Ms Higgins had made “important points in relation to the strong announcements” because “as we all know, Covid fatigue has begun.”
Butler said he would pass Higgins’s information and data on to the Health Department and HSE.
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