Four Years After Shelter-in-Place, COVID-19 Misinformation Persists – The Good Men Project

By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, PolitiFact

From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major normal thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns.

Even before the first case of covid-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformations rapid spread. In March 2020, schools closed, employers sent staff to work from home, and grocery stores called for physical distancing to keep people safe. But little halted the flow of misleading claims that sent fact-checkers and public health officials into overdrive.Some peoplefalselyasserted covids symptoms were associated with 5G wireless technology. Faux cures anduntested treatmentspopulated social media and political discourse. Amid uncertainty about the viruss origins, some people proclaimedcovid didnt exist at all. PolitiFact named downplay and denial about the virus its2020 Lie of the Year.

Four years later, peoples lives are largely free of the extreme public health measures that restricted them early in the pandemic. But covid misinformation persists, although its now centered mostly on vaccines and vaccine-related conspiracy theories.

PolitiFact has publishedmore than 2,000 fact checksrelated to covid vaccines alone.

From a misinformation researcher perspective, [there has been] shifting levels of trust, said Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Early on in the pandemic, there was a lot of: This isnt real, fake cures, and then later on, we see more vaccine-focused mis- and disinformation and a more partisan type of disinformation and misinformation.

Here are some of the most persistent covid misinformation narratives we see today:

A Loss of Trust in the Vaccines

Covid vaccines were quickly developed, with U.S. patients receiving the first shots in December 2020, 11 months after the first domestic case was detected.

Experts credit the speedy development with helping tosave millions of livesand preventing hospitalizations. Researchers at the University of Southern California and Brown University calculated thatvaccines saved 2.4 million livesin 141 countries starting from the vaccines rollout through August 2021 alone. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows there were 1,164 U.S. deaths provisionallyattributed to covidthe week of March 2, down from nearly 26,000 at the pandemics height in January 2021, as vaccines were just rolling out.

But on social media and in some public officials remarks, misinformation about covid vaccine efficacy and safety is common.U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has built his 2024 campaign on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories about the vaccines. PolitiFact made that its 2023 Lie of the Year.

PolitiFact has seen claims that spike proteins from vaccines arereplacing spermin vaccinated males. (Thatsfalse.) Weve researched the assertion that vaccines can change your DNA. (Thatsmisleading and ignores evidence). Social media posts poked fun at Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for encouraging people to get vaccinated, asserting that the vaccine actually shuts off recipients hearts. (No, it doesnt.)And some people pointed to an American Red Cross blood donation questionnaire as evidence that shots are unsafe.(PolitiFact rated that False.)

Experts say this misinformation has real-world effects.

A September 2023 survey byKFF found that 57% of Americanssay they are very or somewhat confident in covid vaccines. And those who distrust them are more likely to identify as politically conservative: Thirty-six percent of Republicans compared with 84% of Democrats say they are very or somewhat confident in the vaccine.

Immunization rates for routine vaccines for other conditions have also taken a hit. Measles had been eradicated for more than 20 years in the U.S. but there have been recent outbreaks instates including Florida,Maryland, and Ohio. Floridas surgeon general has expressedskepticismabout vaccines andrejectedguidancefrom the CDC about how to contain potentially deadly disease spread.

The vaccination rate among kindergartners has declined from 95% in the 2019-20 school year to 93% in 2022-23, according to theCDC. Public health officials have set a 95% vaccination rate target to prevent and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. The CDC also foundexemptions had risen to 3%, the highest rate ever recordedin the U.S.

Unsubstantiated Claims That Vaccines Cause Deaths or Other Illness

PolitiFact has seen repeated and unsubstantiatedclaims that covid vaccines have caused mass numbers of deaths.

A recent widely shared post claimed17 million people had diedbecause of the vaccine, despite contrary evidence from multiple studies and institutions such as the World Health Organization and CDC that the vaccines are safe and help to prevent severe illness and death.

Another online post claimed the booster vaccine hadeight strains of HIVand would kill 23% of the population. Vaccine manufacturers publish theingredient lists; they do not include HIV. People living with HIV were among the peoplegiven priority accessduring early vaccine rollout to protect them from severe illness.

Covid vaccines also have been blamed forcausing Alzheimersandcancer. Experts have found no evidence the vaccines cause either conditions.

You had this remarkable scientific or medical accomplishment contrasted with this remarkable rejection of that technology by a significant portion of the American public, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.

More than three years after vaccines became available, about 70% of Americans have completed a primary series of covid vaccination,according to CDC figures. About 17% have gotten the most recentbivalent booster.

False claimsoften pullfrom and misuse datafrom theVaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The database, run by the CDC and the FDA, allows anybody to report reactions after any vaccine. The reports themselves are unverified, but the database is designed to help researchers find patterns for further investigation.

AnOctober 2023 surveypublished in November by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 63% of Americans think it is safer to get the covid-19 vaccine than the covid-19 disease that was down from 75% in April 2021.

Celebrity Deaths Falsely Attributed to Vaccines

Betty White, Bob Saget,Matthew Perry, andDMXare just a few of the many celebrities whose deaths were falsely linked to the vaccine. The anti-vaccine filmDied Suddenly tried to give credence to false claims that the vaccine causes people to die shortly after receiving it.

Cline Gounder, editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and an infectious disease specialist, said these claims proliferate because of two things:cognitive bias and more insidious motivated reasoning.

Its like saying I had an ice cream cone and then I died the next day; the ice cream must have killed me, she said. And those with preexisting beliefs about the vaccine seek to attach sudden deaths to the vaccine.

Gounder experienced thispersonally when her husband, the celebrated sports journalist Grant Wahl, died while covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm but anti-vaccine accounts falsely linked his death to a covid vaccine, forcing Gounder topubliclyset the record straight.

It is very clear that this is about harming other people, said Gounder, who was aguestat United Facts of America in 2023. And in this case, trying to harm me and my family at a point where we were grieving my husbands loss. What was important in that moment was to really stand up for my husband, his legacy, and to do what I know he would have wanted me to do, which is to speak the truth and to do so very publicly.

Out-of-Control Claims About Government Control

False claims that thepandemic was plannedby government leaders and those in power abound.

At any given moment, Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab, or Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are blamed for orchestrating pandemic-related threats.In November, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) falsely claimed Fauci brought the virus to his state ayear before the pandemic.There isno evidenceof that. Gates, according to the narratives, is using dangerous vaccines to push a depopulation agenda. Thatsfalse. And Schwab has not said he has an agenda to establish a totalitarian global regime using the coronavirus to depopulate the Earth and reorganize society. Thats part of aconspiracy theorythats come to be calledThe Great Resetthat has beendebunkedmanytimes.

The United Nations World Health Organization is frequently painted as a global force for evil, too, with detractors saying it is using vaccination to control or harm people. But the WHO has not declared thata new pandemicis happening, as some have claimed. Its current pandemic preparedness treaty is in no way positioned to remove human rights protections or restrict freedoms, asone post said. And the organization has not announced plans to deploy troops to corral people andforcibly vaccinate them. The WHO is, however, working on a new treaty to help countries improve coordination in response to future pandemics.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This story can be republished for free (details).

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News free Morning Briefing.

Previously Published on kffhealthnews.org

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Four Years After Shelter-in-Place, COVID-19 Misinformation Persists - The Good Men Project