UK Covid-19: As young people itch to leave closure, British health experts face new challenge

London (CNN) – When 21-year-old Daanish Hussain escaped from London to Dubai during the New Year, he did what he does almost every day: he picked up the phone and documented his journey for his 550,000 followers on TikTok.

His video montage – which showed him changing the gray sky to reach the sun in the UAE – would attract the envy of many Britons, who have been banned for months from all exceptional international travel.

“I noticed that a lot of influencers were leaving, like many,” Hussain told CNN, admitting he has seen some anger in the comments on his travel videos.

The travels of influential Britons have not escaped the attention of the insatiable tabloids of the United Kingdom: screenshots of their foreign parts have been stuccoed for weeks under unflattering headlines.

And influencers don’t need to leave home to make a reaction. Last month, a senior National Health Service (NHS) official was forced to urge people not to follow the advice of Gwyneth Paltrow, who wrote in her blog that she alleviated the effects of the long Covid with a big variety of superfoods such as kombucha and kimchi.

But as young people become uneasy about closure, and as vaccine launches move toward millennials, concern grows both inside and outside the industry that influences their laissez-faire approach. rub the fans.

“One of the reasons marketers use celebrities in their campaigns is because they know it has an impact because consumers, especially young people, want to mimic their behaviors,” Linda Bauld, a teacher at CNN, told CNN by email. public health University of Edinburgh. . “Social media influencers are current celebrities. They need to recognize the responsibility that comes with it and work to promote public health and not undermine it.

“Influencers have this huge attraction: in their name, they influence,” added Keith Herman, whose company Trending Travel uses a network of influencers to promote locations around the world. “You have to be careful about how you use them.”

“People look at you as a role model”

“We need to take Covid a lot of time seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care.”

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel had also spoken out against stars taking flights to sunnier places. “We see a lot of influencers on social media showing where they are in the world, mostly sunny places,” he told Parliament, stressing that people simply shouldn’t travel.

But if the British media is any indication, the warning has not been leaked through the influential community.

A look at the comments on any influencer relaxing abroad shows that not everyone feels the same way. “Work hard! I hope you enjoy the pandemic,” one user wrote under a recent image of former reality TV star James Lock, who showed him jet skiing in Dubai. Similar influencer posts often see a series of messages in which fans say they will stop following the star.

Hussain, who became one of the British stars of TikTok last year under his “its_danzy” control, insisted the outrage is not found. “Some people don’t realize that social media is a job,” he told CNN.

As for his own reasons for traveling, Hussain said he “had to go for business reasons,” but also “we were in a lockdown and it was for my birthday.” He added: “And I knew it would be good for content too. People love different countries and that.”

The college student has no illusions because his sudden platform carries weight, even when its content is contrary to official advice. “People look at you as a role model … when you have people who value your point and value what you say, in a sense, I think that influences.”

And he admitted he regretted “to some extent” posting about his travels. “You’re telling people to do what the law tells you not to do.

“But if you were there for business or influence reasons … I wouldn’t say you should go there too,” he added. “If an influencer doesn’t do what he has to do, he won’t make money.”

Others have been less relaxed.

Herman, who uses Trending Travel to use a network of influencers to promote locations around the world, said he made the costly decision to tell stars not to post content from abroad.

“We realized pretty early on that every time someone posted, he was absolutely murdered on a sensitive topic,” he said. “I think some of them are more naive than anything else … We just told all the influencers we had outside (on holiday destinations): please don’t post.”

“Followers are everything”

Elma Beganovich, an influencer with 700,000 Instagram followers who has leveraged her social skills to start a marketing business, told CNN that online stars must follow a crucial rule: “You can’t go deaf.

“Champagne in the pool of some exotic resort … this will not be socially acceptable,” Beganovich told CNN. “It gets nasty to say, look I’m ostentatious, when you know so many people have lost their jobs or have their loved ones hospitalized.”

“For influencers, followers are everything,” he said. “They may lose their contracts or have them reduced or paused” if brands consider their behavior to be out of touch.

More urgently, health experts are concerned about the impact of carefree content at a time when most of the world is still dying trapped under a Covid-19 cloud.

“Celebrities and public figures influence public perceptions, attitudes and behaviors, which carries a great deal of responsibility,” said Ilan Kelman, a professor of disaster and health at University College London. “We would expect all influencers and people in the public eye to make their comments based on science and their actions to be clearly within the rules,” he said.

“We know from other public health issues that images or stories of celebrities involved in harmful behaviors play a role in other people believing that behavior is acceptable or normal,” added Linda Bauld, Bruce, and John Usher, a public health professor at the University of Edinburgh. . “There are several studies that illustrate that celebrities who smoke in movies influence youth smoking and that alcohol recommendations by influencers increase the risk of alcohol abuse in teens.

“Therefore, it is plausible that if we see influencers who transgress blocking rules in the press, this type of behavior will be normalized, which will make it more acceptable,” he said.

“There are a lot of things that could be said to be a bit freaky and irresponsible” online, added Heidi J Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, a research group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine set up to combat hesitation .

“The reality is that (young people) have been less affected by this pandemic,” he added. “(I) They have a lot of exposure to this misinformation.

“We should not be fooled by the wave of hesitation we will see in different environments, and especially with younger people,” he said.

But if they offer a challenge, influencers can also present an opportunity.

The British government has tried to put them aside. Last month he appointed mental health ambassador Alex George, a contestant on the reality TV show “Love Island,” who returned to work as a front-line physician during the Covid-19 crisis. And last year 63,000 pounds ($ 88,000) were given to 42 influencers in exchange for promoting their coronavirus testing and monitoring program.

“I think it’s good: we’re going to need different types of voices,” Larson said. “It’s important to have some credible and authoritative voices on social media.”

Even travel companies like Herman’s want to use influencers in a new way, encouraging them to start posting about how safe Covid hotels are once they start promotions again.

And Beganovich predicts lasting changes in the influential industry, with a new interest in the content of health experts. “I’ve seen emergency physicians gain a lot of popularity through Instagram,” he said. “Even influencers influence it.”