To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?
The grave COVID-19 pandemic among the even graver infodemic: how anti-vaccine memes have contributed to an epidemic of uncertainty, rumors, conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy
The novel coronavirus has not only significantly impacted several lives, but has also increased people’s need to continuously consume material related to the pandemic. According to Ofcom’s 2020 news consumption report, 45% of adults choose to receive their daily dose of news from social networking sites, with Facebook being the third most popular source of information.
This is problematic as such sites have become the epitome of sensationalism, rumours, misinformation and disinformation with regards to the pandemic. The World Health Organisation labels this as an ‘infodemic’ –‘deliberate attempts to disseminate wrong information to undermine the public health response and advance alternative agendas of groups or individuals’ (WHO, 2020).
Such falsehoods can be found in the form of Internet memes. While intended to be humorous, repeated exposure to COVID-19 memes, relating to the negative consequences of being vaccinated, reinforces inaccurate information and contributes to concerns about vaccination safety and efficacy.
The image above is a popular meme that has been circulating across many local and community online forums, depicting snapshots from rapper Drake’s Hotline Bling music video to spread false claims that vaccines can alter genetic DNA.
The meme states that the recovery rate from the disease is 99.97% implying that contracting the virus is far better than being vaccinated, an assumption that scientists and professionals continously reject (O’Connor & Murphy, 2020). I had come across similar arguments against the vaccine on various social media platforms- questioning why we need one at all if the mortality rate is so low.
As a result, memes about the vaccines’ radical side effects dominated the internet. This is known as post-truth which can be defined as ‘not the abandonment of facts, but a corruption of the process by which facts are credibly gathered and reliably used to shape…beliefs about reality’ (McIntyre, 2018, p. 11).
Additionally, the Astra-Zeneca vaccine which caused blood clots and strokes in a scarce number of patients, was taken out of its original context and used as a generalisation to all vaccinations being life-threatening, despite health officials claiming the benefits still outweigh the risks.
Without a vaccine, there will be many more infections — and therefore deaths — before enough people are immune to stop the spread. This is known as herd immunity — when a certain portion of the population have caught the virus.
This is not only about survival. For each person that dies, there are thousands of others who are lucky enough to live through it but endure intensive medical care and potential long-lasting health effects.
This can contribute to a health service overburdened with Covid patients, competing with a hospital’s limited resources to treat patients with other illnesses and injuries.
Satire or disinformation?
Shared posts of deformed people or creatures (pictured above), claim that their deformities were caused by the vaccine — while obviously intended as a joke meant for humorous purposes, the message that these groups strongly oppose vaccinations is clear. Even though vaccinations do have side effects such as a sore arm, headache or fever, these are extremely mild usually lasting no longer than a day or two.
When memes have been dominating the internet for months, some begin to question if there’s anything to these false or baseless claims.
“Memes like these can be disarming, because they tap into fears we all have about trust in science and medication side effects” says Joan Donovan, a lecturer at Harvard University, and an expert on disinformation.
“Tying together negative messaging to pop culture can be especially memorable and drive people to share because the meme is funny, outrageous, or sticky (memorable).”
Valenzuela et al., (2019) revealed that seeking information on social media increases the possibility for further spreading and sharing of misinformation, due to higher levels and repeated exposure.
Research has found that even a 5–10 minute encounter with anti-vaccine content increased perceptions of vaccination risks and hesitancy (Betsch et al., 2010). Such behaviours have seen an alarming depletion in vaccination and recovery rates, preventing herd immunisation therefore posing a serious threat to public health, as addressed in the video above.
Despite vaccines undergoing meticulous safety checks before they are approved for public use, the unprecedented flux of unverified information only furthers anxieties due to the infodemic and risks thousands of lives worldwide.
References
Betsch, C., Renkewitz, F., Betsch, T., & Ulshöfer, C. (2010). The Influence Of Vaccine-Critical Websites on Perceiving Vaccination Risks. Journal of Health Psychology, 15(3), 446–455.
Kata, A. (2012). Anti-Vaccine Activists, Web 2.0, and the Postmodern Paradigm–An Overview of Tactics and Tropes Used Online by the Anti-Vaccination Movement. Vaccine, 30(25), 3778–3789.
McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press.
O’Connor, C., & Murphy, M. (2020). Going Viral: Doctors Must Combat Fake News in the Fight against Covid-19. Irish Medical Journal, 113(5), 85–85.
Valenzuela, S., Halpern, D., Katz, J. E., & Miranda, J. P. (2019). The Paradox of Participation Versus Misinformation: Social Media, Political Engagement, and the Spread of Misinformation. Digital Journalism, 7(6), 802–823.
