WHO Says Misinformation About Covid Is A Major Factor In Global Pandemic

A senior World Health Organization official said misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines appears to have worsened in recent weeks and is preventing people from getting vaccinated and is leading to an increase in cases around the world.

Public health officials have blamed conspiracy theories and misinformation for growing mistrust of vaccines around the world – so much so that US surgeon general Vivek Murthy has declared Covid misinformation a “serious public threat In the United States last month.

“Over the past four weeks or so, the amount of misinformation going around seems to be getting worse, and I think it’s really confusing for the general public,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical officer on Covid- 19, during a press conference. Questions and answers broadcast live on the organization’s social media on Tuesday. It has become another risk factor that “really allows the virus to thrive,” she said.

Misinformation has become a growing problem in the epidemic, fueling the reluctance of a public wary of vaccines, according to health officials. They are hoping that Pfizer’s official approval of the Covid vaccine on Monday will help make some people hesitate to get vaccinated in order to get the shot.

Three in ten unvaccinated Americans said they would be more likely to receive the vaccine once it is approved by the FDA, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted July 15-27. Some medical experts fear that some unvaccinated Americans have used the lack of FDA approval as a credible explanation for their reluctance, and will now seek other excuses why they refuse to be vaccinated.

Most unvaccinated Americans believe Covid vaccines are more of a threat to their health than contracting the virus itself, according to data from Kaiser. Americans least likely to receive a Covid-19 vaccine are mostly white, less likely to have a college degree and Republicans, according to Kaiser data.

Dr Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Assessment and Research, said vaccine misinformation is “one of the biggest challenges we still face getting vaccinated. the public “.

“We have heard false claims that the Covid-19 vaccine causes infertility, contains microchips and causes Covid-19,” Marks said. “And worse, we’ve heard false claims that thousands of people have died from the vaccine. Let’s be clear: those claims are just not true.”

The director of the Latin America branch of the WHO, the Pan American Health Organization, has issued a personal appeal to residents of Caribbean countries to “wake up” from the sleep of disinformation and get vaccinated as Covid disinformation is spreading across the islands.

Misinformation has plagued public school board meetings across the country as school districts weigh mask and vaccine warrants for children and returning staff for the next school year. Parents and community residents have turned up at public school board meetings to slam education and public health officials for considering mask warrants as videos of residents citing unproven and false allegations on Covid and vaccines are going viral on social networks.

Vaccination could help us bring Covid-19 under control by spring 2022, according to the president’s medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci.

“I would like to call on the people of the country who are not vaccinated to realize that we have the capacity between us to essentially shorten the time frame needed to end this pandemic,” Fauci said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “Get vaccinated and the time will be drastically cut short.”