Severity: Warning
Message: file_get_contents(https://...@gmail.com&api_key=61f08fa0b96a73de8c900d749fcb997acc09): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
Filename: helpers/my_audit_helper.php
Line Number: 143
Backtrace:
File: /var/www/html/application/helpers/my_audit_helper.php
Line: 143
Function: file_get_contents
File: /var/www/html/application/helpers/my_audit_helper.php
Line: 209
Function: simplexml_load_file_from_url
File: /var/www/html/application/helpers/my_audit_helper.php
Line: 994
Function: getPubMedXML
File: /var/www/html/application/helpers/my_audit_helper.php
Line: 3134
Function: GetPubMedArticleOutput_2016
File: /var/www/html/application/controllers/Detail.php
Line: 574
Function: pubMedSearch_Global
File: /var/www/html/application/controllers/Detail.php
Line: 488
Function: pubMedGetRelatedKeyword
File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once
Introduction: Rumors and conspiracy theories, can contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Monitoring online data related to COVID-19 vaccine candidates can track vaccine misinformation in real-time and assist in negating its impact. This study aimed to examine COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories circulating on online platforms, understand their context, and then review interventions to manage this misinformation and increase vaccine acceptance.
Method: In June 2020, a multi-disciplinary team was formed to review and collect online rumors and conspiracy theories between 31 December 2019-30 November 2020. Sources included Google, Google Fact Check, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, fact-checking agency websites, and television and newspaper websites. Quantitative data were extracted, entered in an Excel spreadsheet, and analyzed descriptively using the statistical package R version 4.0.3. We conducted a content analysis of the qualitative information from news articles, online reports and blogs and compared with findings from quantitative data. Based on the fact-checking agency ratings, information was categorized as true, false, misleading, or exaggerated.
Results: We identified 637 COVID-19 vaccine-related items: 91% were rumors and 9% were conspiracy theories from 52 countries. Of the 578 rumors, 36% were related to vaccine development, availability, and access, 20% related to morbidity and mortality, 8% to safety, efficacy, and acceptance, and the rest were other categories. Of the 637 items, 5% (30/) were true, 83% (528/637) were false, 10% (66/637) were misleading, and 2% (13/637) were exaggerated.
Conclusions: Rumors and conspiracy theories may lead to mistrust contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Tracking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in real-time and engaging with social media to disseminate correct information could help safeguard the public against misinformation.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8115834 | PMC |
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251605 | PLOS |
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