Public health authorities and social media companies are grappling with coronavirus misinformation while trying to ensure that enough Americans are vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Health experts say at least 70 percent of the country must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and completely destroy the outbreak that killed more than 300,000 Americans.
National polls show that an increasing number of Americans are willing to get a coronavirus vaccine, but that some populations, especially black and Latino people, are reluctant.
Federal officials are rolling out a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech that is 95 percent effective, and the Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a second vaccine from Moderna that is nearly as effective in preventing cases of COVID-19.
“It would be terrible, with such a good tool, if people didn’t use that tool,” Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci Trump Remains Off Camera While Vaccine Is Spread Vaccination Is Not The Complete Answer To COVID-19 Fauci Urges Americans To ‘Step On The Plate’ And Get MORE Vaccinated, the nation’s top infectious disease physician, said in an NPR interview Dec. 15.
The reasons for skepticism vary. Some people have mentioned the Trump administration’s politicization of a vaccine, despite officials’ denials that politics has played a role in its rapid development.
Others are rooted in the troubled past and present of American medicine with minority patients.
“You have to recognize the historical mistakes that have happened. And then you have to explicitly address those concerns, ”said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
Authorities must allay the legitimate concerns that make people hesitate, while stopping waves of deliberate disinformation from anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.
Benjamin said it is easier to address the concerns of those who hesitate than those who believe and often deliberately propound conspiracy theories.
‘You know, what do you do with the person who doesn’t believe this disease exists? Some of those people will face reality when they or a family member or someone they know really gets sick. And you will never convince some of them, ”said Benjamin.
Anti-vaccination communities have long been among the most active and engaged online, gathering in public and private spaces to share untruths about vaccine risk.
Those groups have been fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, which has both eroded trust in traditional institutions and left millions of people with few options for social interaction outside of the Internet.
Paul Barrett, deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, told The Hill that the biggest source of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines is “the morphing of longtime anti-vaccine activists.”
“There is a significant foundation that existed before anyone heard of COVID-19,” he explained. “Those groups have been fully activated by the current crisis.”
The same mistrust in institutions that have fostered anti-vaccination communities has also led thousands to conspiracy theories.
QAnon, whose followers believe President Trump
Donald Trump Trump Signs Bill To Keep Government Open Amid US Emergency Talks To Shut Down Two Russian Consulates ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Social Media Trends Following New Space Force Name MORE working to expose a cabal of shadowy elites in the media and the government running child sex trafficking rings has clearly benefited from that shift to conspiratorial thinking.
The growth of QAnon could make it difficult to achieve herd immunity, as his supporters are pushing up lies about COVID-19 vaccines, such as being microchipped to monitor and track civilians, or that Bill Gates is responsible for it. coronavirus.
“These conspiracy theories are wrong, but I am very concerned that they could break into the mainstream. And if we have people who are not going to be vaccinated, that makes it much more difficult for us to get herd immunity through vaccination, and thus to end the epidemic, ”said Leana Wen, a public health professor. served as Baltimore’s health commissioner at George Washington University.
“So it’s really a matter of life and death here,” Wen said.
Public health officials will also face a more common source of vaccine misinformation: conservative media and supporters of President Trump.
A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 42 percent of Republicans would probably not, or certainly not, be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Vice President Pence and his wife Karen were vaccinated live on television on Friday in an attempt to bridge the partisan divide. But Trump was noticeably absent.
Wen said it would be helpful if Trump spoke up and given the opportunity.
“There are many millions of Americans today for whom the most credible messenger is President Trump. And so it is very important to let President Trump speak, to correct misinformation, ”said Wen.
Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the severity of the pandemic and has mocked the use of masks to limit its spread.
According to a report from Cornell University, 38 percent of all misinformation articles about the coronavirus pandemic published between Jan. 1 and May 26 contained Trump and some kind of misleading claim he shared.
Congressional lawmakers who support Trump have also said things that could discourage the use of vaccines.
Rep. Ken Buck
Kenneth (Ken) Robert Buck Antitrust, Content Moderation to Dominate Technology Policy in 2021 Organizations are forcing conference leaders to prioritize technology antitrust report. Techlash rhetoric: a source of clarity or confusion? LAKE (R-Colo.) Said he wouldn’t take the vaccine because he’s “more concerned about the side effects of the vaccine than the disease” in a Fox Business interview Friday morning. His office later clarified that Buck believes those at risk should “get the vaccine immediately.”
Right-wing media is also a driver of misinformation about the coronavirus. An analysis found that between February 1 and March 23, right-wing outlets published nearly 4,000 stories containing erroneous information about the disease, while regular outlets had only 1,500.
Social media platforms, one of the leading causes of health misinformation, have sought to eradicate misinformation.
Facebook said earlier this month it will begin removing messages containing false claims about the “safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects” of coronavirus vaccines.
Twitter said earlier this week it would begin labeling and requiring users to remove messages that “bring up harmful, false or misleading stories” about the COVID-19 vaccinations. YouTube announced a similar policy in October.
In addition to mitigating existing coronavirus misinformation, Barrett said platforms should work to pull information about vaccines from reliable sources. Many of them have already done so.
Still, health experts said technology companies can only go so far.
“If anyone is in any doubt about vaccines, I’m not sure they’ll change their mind, is an ad on Facebook,” Wen said.
What matters is outreach.
“I think what could help them change their minds is that their family members get the vaccine, talk to their pastor about it and see their fellow parishioners get the vaccine,” Wen said.