“Why Are They Already Digging Our Graves?”: Unraveling the Diverse Emotional Responses to COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa and Tanzania

ABSTRACT: Understanding the emotional responses to public health interventions provides essential insights for building trust between health responders and communities. This study examines COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in South Africa and Tanzania during the Omicron wave (January–October 2022). It analyzes participants’ fear and mistrust of public health vaccination protocols in the context of a long history of Western medical experimentation on African bodies. Ethnographic research reveals that vaccine hesitancy emerges from participants’ suspicions that science and donor agencies unfairly and immorally use their wealth and hidden political connections to compel African governments to accept foreign agencies’ healthcare interventions. Furthermore, participants indicate that religion and rituals serve as “antidotes” to COVID-19. Exploring the public’s suspicion surrounding COVID-19 vaccination contributes to anthropological scholarship seeking to understand the gap between people’s knowledge and actions. Suspicions about the COVID-19 vaccine are part of a global atmosphere of vaccine hesitancy and are not unique to Africa. This study’s focus on citizens’ perspectives directs public health providers’ and analysts’ attention to the role of emotions in connecting regulatory knowledge with prescriptive practice.