Health officials fight social media to fight false alarms

Public health authorities and social media companies are struggling to combat false information about the coronavirus to ensure that a sufficient number of Americans are vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Health experts say that at least 70 percent of the country needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and completely crush outbreaks that have killed more than 300,000 Americans.

National polls show that more and more Americans are willing to receive the coronavirus vaccine, but some populations, especially blacks and Latinos, are modest.

Federal authorities have vaccinated Pfizer and BioNTech with 95% effective vaccines, and Friday’s Food and Drug Administration issued a second vaccine from Moderna that is nearly equally effective in preventing cases of COVID-19. I cleared it.

“If people don’t use the tool, it would be terrible if there was a tool as good as it.” Anthony FauciAnthony FauciTrump stays away from the camera while the vaccine is being distributed Vaccination is not the perfect answer to COVID-19 Fouch urges Americans to “step into the plate” and get vaccinated MoreThe country’s top infectious disease doctor said in an NPR interview on December 15.

There are various reasons for skepticism. Some have quoted what they called the Trump administration’s politicization of vaccines, despite denials from officials that politics played a role in rapid development.

Others are based on the problematic past of American medicine and are with patients in the minority group.

“You must admit the historical mistakes that have been made, and you need to address those concerns clearly,” said Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Society of Public Health.

Authorities need to dispel legitimate concerns that hesitate, while stopping a wave of deliberate false alarms from anti-boxers and conspiracy theorists.

Benjamin said it’s easier to address the concerns of hesitant people than to believe in conspiracy theories and deliberately forge them.

“What do you do with people who don’t believe this illness exists? Some of those people will face reality when they or their family or someone they know really gets sick. And some of them will never convince you, “Benjamin said.

The vaccination prevention community has long been the most active and online engaged in public and private spaces to share falsehoods about the risks of vaccination.

These groups are supercharged by a coronavirus pandemic, which undermines trust in traditional institutions and leaves few options for social interaction other than the Internet.

Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Stern Business and Human Rights Center at New York University, told Hill that the number one cause of disinformation about coronavirus vaccines was “a long-standing transformation of anti-vaccine activists.”

“There’s a good foundation there that existed before everyone heard about COVID-19,” he explained. “These groups have been fully activated by the current crisis.”

The same distrust of the institutions that backed the anti-vaccination community also poured thousands into conspiracy theories.

Believers believe in QAnon President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump signs a bill to keep the government open in relief negotiations US closes two Russian consulates “Guardians of the Galaxy” Trends on Social Media Following the New Space Force Name More Was a clear beneficiary of that slide to conspiracy thinking, as the media and government worked to expose a conspiracy group of shadow elites running a circle of child trafficking.

QAnon’s growth is herd immunity because its supporters lie about the COVID-19 vaccine, such as being administered in microchips to control and track citizens, or Bill Gates being responsible for the coronavirus. It can complicate the arrival.

“These conspiracy theories are wrong, but I’m very worried that they could invade the mainstream. Also, if some people aren’t vaccinated, vaccination will give herd immunity. It’s much harder to get, and as a result, you can’t end the epidemic, “said Linawen, a former public health professor at George Washington University. He was a member of the Baltimore Health Commission.

“So it’s really a matter of life and death here,” Wen said.

Public health officials will also have to fight conservative media and supporters of President Trump, the more mainstream sources of false information about vaccines.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 42% of Republicans were or would never be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Vice President Pence and his wife Karen were vaccinated live on television on Friday to bridge the division of the faction. However, Trump was significantly absent.

Wen said it would be useful if Trump was shot aloud.

“Today, there are millions of Americans whose most trusted messenger is President Trump, and having President Trump speak is really important to correct the wrong information,” Wen said. It was.

Trump repeatedly questioned the seriousness of the pandemic and mocked the use of masks to limit its spread.

According to a report from Cornell University, 38% of all articles published between January 1st and May 26th, including false information about the coronavirus pandemic, were some sort of misunderstanding he shared with Trump. It was characterized by a claim that led to.

Parliamentarians who support Trump also say that it can discourage the use of vaccines.

Person in charge KenbackKenneth (Ken) Robert BuckAntitrust law governing technology policy in 2021, moderation of content Organizations Encourage Parliamentary Leaders to Prioritize Technology Antitrust Reporting Tecrash Rhetoric: Causes of Clarity and Confusion? More (R-Colo.) Said in an interview with Fox Business on Friday morning that he would not take the vaccine because he was “more interested in the side effects of the vaccine than the disease.” His office later revealed that Buck believed that those at risk should be “immediately vaccinated.”

Right-wing media is also the driving force behind misinformation about the coronavirus. According to one analysis, between February 1st and March 23rd, right-wing retailers posted nearly 4,000 articles and posted false information about the disease, but mainstream retailers There were only 1,500 cases.

Social media platforms, one of the main vectors of false information about health, have sought to eliminate false information.

Earlier this month, Facebook announced that it would begin removing posts that make false claims about the “safety, efficacy, ingredients, or side effects” of the coronavirus vaccine.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced that it would begin labeling users with a post saying “Proceed with harmful, false, or misleading explanations” about COVID-19 vaccination and requesting users to remove it. YouTube announced a similar policy in October.

Barrett said the platform needs to work to not only limit false information about existing coronaviruses, but also to increase information about vaccines from trusted sources. Many of them have already done so.

Still, health experts said tech companies can only go so far.

“If anyone has doubts about vaccines, I don’t know if it’s Facebook ads that change their minds,” Wen said.

Outreach is important.

“I think what might help them change their minds is to see their families vaccinated, have their pastors talk about it, and see their fellow parishioners vaccinated. “I will.” Wen said.