The change is especially visible in the past six weeks. According to an analysis by Zignal, election misinformation peaked on Nov. 4 with 375,000 mentions through cable TV, social media, print media and online news broadcasts. By December 3, that had dropped to 60,000 entries. But misinformation about the coronavirus steadily increased over that period, rising to 46,100 entries on December 3, from 17,900 entries on November 8.
NewsGuard, a start-up fighting false stories, said that of the 145 websites in its Election Misinformation Tracking Center, a database of sites publishing false election information, 60 percent of them have also published misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. That includes right-wing outlets like Breitbart, Newsmax and One America News Network, which distributed inaccurate articles about the election and now publish misleading articles about the vaccines.
John Gregory, the deputy health editor for NewsGuard, said the shift should not be taken lightly, as false information about vaccines leads to real harm. In Britain in the early 2000s, he said, an unfounded link between the measles vaccine and autism scared people not to take that vaccine. That led to deaths and serious permanent injuries, he said.
“Misinformation creates fear and uncertainty about the vaccine and could reduce the number of people who want to use the vaccine,” said Carl Bergstrom, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington who has monitored the pandemic.
Dr. Shira Doron, an epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, said the consequences of people not taking the Covid-19 vaccines because of misinformation would be catastrophic. The vaccines are “the most important part of ending the pandemic,” she said. “We won’t get there any other way.”
Ms. Powell did not respond to a request for comment.
To address vaccine misinformation, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites have expanded their policies to monitor and demote such posts. Facebook and YouTube said they would remove false claims about the vaccines, while Twitter said it pointed people to credible public health sources.
Business and economics
The stream of falsehoods about vaccines has started to increase in recent weeks when it became clear that the coronavirus vaccines would soon be approved and available. Propagators of misinformation shone on interviews by health experts and began to twist them.