By Thomas JL Danielian

On January 2, 2020, Dr. Jason Kindrachuk — an expert in emerging infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba – retweeted a post about a ‘mystery pneumonia in Wuhan, China.’ 

Dr. Kindrachuk was doing what he always did whenever a new virus piqued his curiosity. His academic career dictated that he would be interested in such developments, even if they seemed small. 

As we know now, that virus has dominated our lives ever since. 

Early on in the pandemic, Dr. Kindrachuk was invited to do a five-minute interview on a local news network in Winnipeg, Canada. He then got more offers, followed by even more offers, eventually including international organizations like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Euronews, NBC News, and UK radio station LBC. Soon, he was doing daily interviews and had a ballooning social media following. But with his newfound fame — being recognized on the street, getting free coffees at local stores — came online attacks and worries about his family’s safety.

Dr. Kindrachuk found himself thrust onto the front line of the communication battles fought over this pandemic, and he has the scars to prove it.

I was one of those broadcast producers who asked Dr. Kindrachuk to become a voice of reason during the pandemic. In the intervening years, I have watched as his presence has grown in the media and also watched the abuse he faces grow too. I decided to ask him about what it was like to be a scientist thrust into the spotlight by this pandemic. Below is our conversation.

When did you first realize COVID-19 was a big deal?

Dr. Jason Kindrachuk: In January 2020, I went to Nairobi. [I] was running an emerging infectious disease training program for students at the University of Nairobi.

It hit me when people in Nairobi — specifically at my hotel as well as students in my class — started to ask me about COVID and whether they should be concerned.

The hotel manager asked me if I could do a very quick off-the-cuff seminar on COVID and what we understood about the virus for the staff.  That was when it hit that, ‘Oh, this is actually a bigger concern now,’ because you’re starting to see more people in the public that are getting concerned.

Two years ago, very few people would know who you are. What is it like to have this strange and newfound, almost-celebrity status now?

Dr. Kindrachuk: It's awkward, because I'm an introvert by nature. So, it’s weird going to grab coffee somewhere and the person behind the counter recognizes me, or even the people at our local Tim Hortons — a Canadian coffee chain — often want to give me free coffee because of the media that I’m doing. And it’s kind of like, ‘No, this is not why I’m doing this!’

I don't want other people thinking that I thrive off this. I don’t. I’m looking forward to being able to step back and just focus on all the things that I do. 

Why have you been someone who communicates scientific information? Why have you and others like you taken this upon yourselves?

Dr. Kindrachuk: I feel that there’s an obligation.

We need people to be able to make informed decisions and also be comfortable in reaching out to valid resources for information. I really feel that given the point that we’re at right now — and certainly looking at the misinformation, disinformation that is being sown publicly right now — we need to be able to provide people with the opportunity to be armed with how to discern that information.

But you guys have paid a price. What have you faced during this?

Dr. Kindrachuk: Many people that I know personally have faced far more rude things than I ever have. That's disconcerting to me, because I look at this and think about the emails, certainly some of the more horrific emails which are directed towards my child, hoping that they suffer.

I want my child vaccinated. If there's a vaccine that's available for my child against a disease, we want her to have it.

I have people that vehemently disagree with that viewpoint that will talk about ‘this many children that have died because of vaccines, and vaccine injuries, and hopefully your child will suffer the same consequences.’ It's genuinely just disinformation, but it's also horrifying. Because that's not just pushing me anymore. Now it's about my family.

What personal toll do you think having to face messaging like that has taken on you?

Dr. Kindrachuk: I’ve become much more acutely aware — especially here in my home community, because of the amount of media that I do here — of who knows where I live. 

There were protests during the summertime down at our university campus. My daughter's daycare is very close to that and was literally right out the doors of where the protests were. There was that heart-in-my-throat moment of thinking, ‘Oh, what if somebody connects it? Have I put anything out [on] social media? Will they go protest in front of her daycare?’

Of course, there's the mental health aspect, right? There's nothing worse than, in the middle of the night, getting an email from somebody that is completely just maligning you and maligning your expertise and your views.

It took about 50 years before we could truly appreciate what happened during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Do you think you’re seeing a repetition of what happened then, with this being taken seriously and then interest subsiding?

Dr. Kindrachuk: These things are very cyclical in nature, right? With large-scale infectious disease events, we see people that don't believe that the virus is real, that don't believe that this could be happening and also the feeling of, ‘What can we do to protect ourselves? Is there anything we can do?’

I think COVID is very different in the sense that we have the advent of social media — and certainly the internet — right in the background of this. What that has enabled has been the ability for information to move at breakneck speed across the globe, without necessarily having context or nuance added to that.  

One thing that’s happened is that [this pandemic] created a whole world of interest in epidemiology — hopefully — for the next few generations. Do you think there might be more people going into the field now? 

Dr. Kindrachuk: I think the best thing about this is that it’s humanized what we do in terms of our research. Whether it’s public health, whether it’s virology, immunology, epidemiology, social science, you name it, I hope that what it does is it puts a face or faces to those fields for people. 

What do you think needs to happen now to improve science communication?

Dr. Kindrachuk: I think what we need to appreciate is that the time where our conversations as researchers and scientists were limited to our offices, to our laboratories, to conferences — those times no longer exist. There's a public that is yearning for data and for context and information, and we are really the sources for that information. Now, what we need to do is figure out how to be able to do that cogently. 

One of the biggest things that needs to happen moving forward is that when we think about training programs and we think about training of young researchers, young scientists, and the next generation, we need to start to appreciate that part of this has to come or has to focus on public communication and science communication.

Thomas Danielian is an MA Candidate at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism focusing on politics and global affairs. Before the Journalism School, Thomas was a journalist for five years for UK commercial radio stations.