Coronavirus vaccine: As U.S. plans to inoculate, social media becomes key

The development of new coronavirus vaccines is crucial to life returning to normal amid a pandemic that has infected over 10 million Americans and killed more than 245,000.

Pfizer (PFE) recently announced that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. And on Monday, Moderna (MRNA) announced that its vaccine was 94.5% effective in trials and could be distributed even more widely.

States and health departments must now plan for “a timely, comprehensive, and equitable vaccine distribution campaign” while waiting for Congress to provide more than $8 billion in new funding for the herculean initiative.

“The speed at which we vaccinate the population in Maine is directly dependent on the funding,” Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told The New York Times. “We will still get the job done, but it will take longer if I can’t train the people to give it.”

Another variable that could hinder the inoculation of the roughly two-thirds of Americans required to reach herd immunity with 90% effective vaccines: internet users spreading misinformation about the viability of vaccines, including the anti-vaccine community.

Social media could ‘make it more difficult for the vaccines to be adopted’

Vaccine skepticism has already been an issue in the U.S. for years, and Operation Warp Speed — the expedited timeline of testing various coronavirus vaccines — has made some very wary about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine. Social media has made it easier for people to share their worries.

“Unfortunately, there is a very realistic potential for various social media platforms to become a vehicle to propagate and amplify misinformation and, as a result, to make it more difficult for the vaccines to be adopted,” Dr. Richard A Stein, an adjunct professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, adjunct assistant professor at CUNY, and a senior editor with the International Journal of Clinical Practice, told Yahoo Finance.

As of late September, according to Gallup, only 50% of Americans said they are willing to get a coronavirus vaccine — a stark 11-point decline from August.

Stein noted that there is “absolutely” a chance that these groups could pose a risk to a full recovery from the pandemic.

"Ultimately, it comes down to people obtaining their information from reliable sources while at the same time constantly being exposed, in a lot of places, to information that may be incomplete, fabricated, misinterpreted, or distorted,” he said. “I learned that there are many different types and levels of misinformation and, over the years, in the context of various infectious diseases, I increasingly realized how incredibly dangerous this can be for individuals and for public health.”

‘Before joining this group, read information from the’ CDC

While no social media platform is immune from misinformation, particularly when it comes to vaccines, Facebook (FB) has become a hotbed for these groups.

Earlier this year, a 4-year-old boy from Colorado died after an anti-vax group urged his mother not to give him Tamiflu, which was prescribed to him after he displayed flu symptoms.

“The doc prescribed tamiflu I did not pick it up,” she wrote.

A simple search on Facebook can lead users to various groups promoting “vaccine safety awareness” and information regarding “vaccine injuries.”

Facebook has begun taking action to ensure that people receive accurate information. For example, one group dubbed “Vaccine Resistance Movement” has a Facebook note at the top of the page and a link to the CDC’s website.

A link to a YouTube video on the group page has a filter that Facebook provided that says, “False information, checked by independent fact-checkers.” Still, the prompts haven’t prevented users from continuing to post various conspiracy theories about vaccines or the potential for a coronavirus vaccine.

Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

YouTube, perhaps the most dominant social media platform along with Facebook, ran into its own trouble after a BuzzFeed News report found that its algorithm was promoting anti-vaccination content.

After the story was published, YouTube announced that it would be demonetizing anti-vax content and placing an information panel about vaccines before the videos that would link to Wikipedia’s “vaccine hesitancy” entry. Demonetization means that the videos are removed from content that can be advertised upon and generate revenue.

Stein said the monumental fact-checking task is a “huge problem because ... in the context of the huge amount of information that we’ve generated and disseminated, this is becoming increasingly difficult. Even with the best of the intentions at heart, it’s very difficult to verify the accuracy of everything that’s out there.”

It doesn’t help that algorithms are often working against those trying to stop the spread of misinformation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a 2018 Facebook presentation stated: “Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.” “If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”

‘At Twitter, we understand the importance of vaccines’

It’s not just Facebook that has provided a platform for misinformation related to vaccines and the coronavirus. Twitter (TWTR) is also part of it as well.

“Like most social media platforms, people on Twitter tend to find and create their own communities where the information they see is a reflection of their worldview and interests, so it is unsurprising that where people inhabit communities where vaccine critical information is most common, they are more likely to pass on vaccine critical information than they are to dispute it,” Dr. Adam Dunn, head of biomedical informatics and digital health at the University of Sydney, who has studied vaccine misinformation on social media, told Yahoo Finance.

Similar to Facebook, Twitter has mechanisms in place for users searching for content related to vaccines or the anti-vax movement. Upon searching for specific terms, Twitter has an info box at the top of search results that states: “Know the facts. To make sure you get the best information on vaccinations, resources are available from the US Department of Health and Human Services.” A link is provided to the HHS website, along with a link to HHS’ official Twitter page.

In a statement to Yahoo Finance, a Twitter spokesperson said: “We're prioritizing the removal of COVID-19 content when it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm. As we've said previously, we will not take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information about COVID-19. Since introducing these new policies on March 18, we've removed thousands of Tweets. As we’ve doubled down on tech, our automated systems have challenged millions of accounts which were targeting discussions around COVID-19 with spammy or manipulative behaviors.”

Dunn stressed that “vaccine critical information” makes up a relatively small proportion of vaccine information available on Twitter. Anti-vax groups overall, he said, are a “relatively tiny but diverse group.”

“Some exhibit conspiratorial beliefs and this may be related to feelings of anxiety and powerlessness, or the feeling of being special because they think they know something that others don't,” he added. “Some join in because they like being part of a community. Some are just trying to profit on the fears of others.”

‘The themes are strikingly similar across time’

America has a robust history of resisting vaccinations.

“There have been conspiracy theories around vaccines since the very first vaccine was discovered,” Dr. Rob Brotherton, author of ‘Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories,’ told Yahoo Finance. “The themes are strikingly similar across time — distrust of doctors and the medical establishment or of governments mandating vaccination; revulsion at the idea of introducing unknown substances into the body and accusations that the ingredients are harmful; and suspicions that the real motives behind vaccines are to make people sick or control the population.”

Some of the beliefs are rooted in what Brotherton described as “a kernel of truth.” For example, in recent years, the pharma industry has garnered major criticism for its role in the opioid crisis and pushing its various drugs.

Yahoo Finance previously reported that conspiracy theories “fill an important psychological role for many people,” according to Thomas J. Wood, an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University who has studied how conspiracy theories gain public support. “It tends to sway those who have chronic anxiety and feel disaffected by politics by providing a symbolic and intuitive story for them.”

General distrust also plays a role: There is a great deal of wariness within the African-American community when it comes to the overall health care system. Much of it has to do with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which 600 Black men were used as part of an experiment by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of syphilis and not given any treatment during that time. The study lasted for 40 years.

“Historically, the government and medical establishment have abused their power at the cost of people's health: vaccines have in rare cases been contaminated and caused harm, and the American government has used vaccination programs as cover for intelligence operations,” Brotherton said.

Instead of criticizing those who are hesitant towards vaccines, Brotherton emphasized the importance of getting to the roots of those people’s fears.

“There are many assumptions buried in a hypothetical question like that — Is it safe? How effective is it? How expensive is it? What are my chances of getting sick? — and hesitancy doesn't necessarily suggest that someone is a conspiracy theorist or that they won't actually seek vaccination should it become a reality with demonstrated safety and efficacy,” he said. “There's a lot to understand about people's attitudes towards vaccines; acting like anyone with reservations is stupid or crazy isn't going to help.”

Adriana is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @adrianambells.

READ MORE:

• 'A victim of their own success': How vaccines became a casualty of misinformation in the U.S.

• Anti-vax movement is based on an 'entirely fraudulent publication': NIH chief Francis Collins

• America is experiencing 'truth decay' at an alarming rate, experts warn

• Facebook is 'the 800-pound gorilla in the misinformation market'

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.