Beliefs that COVID-19 is exaggerated or an outright hoax, that vaccines can alter a person’s DNA or cause other “covered-up problems” cost an estimated 2,800 lives and thousands of hospitalizations in 2021, according to a new report.
Sharon Kirkey · Postmedia News | Posted: 9 hours ago | Updated: 9 hours ago | 5 Min Read
According to the far-ranging report, between March and November 2021, misinformation helped sway an estimated 2.4 million people in Canada to delay or refuse to get vaccinated against COVID. Had they been vaccinated as soon as they became eligible, by the end of November 2021, there would have been nearly 200,000 fewer cases of COVID and 13,000 fewer hospitalizations.
“But something different is afoot,” he said. Pundits have labelled ours a “post-truth” era, he said, “where the very idea of truth seems to be under attack, and where misinformation is tied in with ideology and identity and arouses great passions.” According to their analysis, if those who believed COVID was a hoax had been vaccinated once eligible, over 2.3 million additional people in Canada would have been vaccinated, resulting in roughly 198,000 fewer cases, 13,000 fewer hospitalizations, 3,500 fewer people needing intensive care, $300 million saved in hospital costs and 2,800 fewer deaths.
But scientific research is also fallible, the panel report notes. “Misinformation can be the product of systemic failures in science and medicine, and in the communication of scientific knowledge and research findings,” it reads. Finding that don’t replicate and weak methodologies are among the reasons why “no one study can be treated as definitive.”
Media platforms could be more transparent “about the algorithms that may actually promote misinformation,” because misinformation gets traffic. More could be done to help people better “identify and reject” misinformation, he said, and promote digital literacy and critical thinking, starting with young school-age kids.
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