Some 33 million people have been vaccinated in Europe, and 222 cases of blood clots have been reported (not all necessarily fatal). For every million people infected with COVID-19, there are 8,000 deaths, so if those 33 million people were infected we could count 26,400 deaths.
That is By administering the vaccine we have potentially avoided 26,400 deaths in exchange for 222 cases of blood clots.
However, both some media and social networks are skeptical and even fearful of vaccines like AstraZeneca. In part, this rejection movement is also linked to the lifelong anti-vaccine movement. Which also gives us a clue to something important: They are few, but they make noise.
Influence on social networks
The modern anti-vaccination movement is led by a relatively small number of dedicated and generally well-funded influencers who have amassed large followings on social media platforms, where fear spreads more easily than facts and nuances.
Specifically, two-thirds of anti-vaccine content shared or published on Facebook and Twitter between February 1 and March 16, 2021 can be attributed to only twelve people. At least in the United States.
One of the first names on the listFor example, it is Joseph Mercola. Their combined social media reach is 3.6 million followers, so when they share a falsehood about 'forced vaccination' being part of a plan to 'reset the global economic system', that idea spreads like wildfire. gunpowder.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is perhaps the most visible leader of the anti-vaccination movement. There is also the influencer couple Sayer Ji and Kelly Brogan. Recently, Ji shared a false claim that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine had killed more people than the disease itself.
The public cannot make informed decisions about their health when they are constantly inundated with misinformation and false content. Social networks, in part, live off the activity that these elements distribute. A good topic to discuss is whether or not we should nip in the bud a social problem that is so clearly identified.
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The news
Anti-vaccines are few but very influential on social networks like Twitter or Facebook
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.