Yahoo Finance Up to one third of people in UK may refuse coronavirus vaccine, new poll finds
Almost a third of people in the UK may refuse a coronavirus vaccine if one is developed, according to a new poll.
Nearly one in five British adults say they would either probably or definitely turn down a vaccine, according to the YouGov poll of 1,663 adults, and another 15 per cent say they don't know yet how they feel about it.
However, scientists say that between 70 and 90 per cent of the population will have to get the new vaccine for it to be effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19, which has killed half a million people since erupting in China six months ago.
It is hard to put an exact figure on how many will need to get the vaccine, because it depends on how effective it turns out to be - if one can be developed at all. For measles, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that 95 per cent of the population get the jab.
The scepticism about a new vaccine comes after an explosion of "anti-vaxxer" content online and in social media, according to new research.
The WHO has already warned about a parallel "infodemic" alongside the pandemic, and new research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that anti-vaccine social media pages and advocates have added 7.7 million more followers in the United Kingdom and United States since the outbreak of coronavirus. The organisation said that fringe groups were "preying" on the uncertainty and fear around the pandemic to serve their own ends.
In total, the pages - which peddle false conspiracy theories including that vaccines cause Covid-19, that philanthropist Bill Gates created the pandemic, and that tests for the vaccine have left women infertile - have 57 million followers across Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, and many more may have seen that content if users share it.
The poll from YouGov and the Center also found that people who get their information from social media rather than more traditional channels are more likely to be sceptical about vaccines, and suggested that the platforms are not doing enough to counter disinformation.
The CEO of CCDH, Imran Ahmed, said: "Our hope for a return to normal life rests with scientists developing a successful vaccine for coronavirus. But social media companies' irresponsible decision to continue to publish anti-vaccine propaganda means a vaccine may not be effective in containing the virus. The price for their greed is a cost paid in lives."
However, the social media companies reacted hotly to suggestions that they were not responding to the problem.
A Facebook spokesperson said: "We are working to stop harmful misinformation from spreading on our platforms and have removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of COVID-19-related misinformation. We reduce vaccine misinformation in News Feed, we don’t show it in search results or recommend it to you on Facebook or Instagram, we don’t allow it in ads, and we connect people with authoritative information from recognised health experts."
The companies also said that they were investigating content brought to their attention and would remove it if it violated standards. A YouTube spokesperson said they had taken similar steps on their channel, including "raising authoritative content" and "reducing the spread of harmful misinformation". According to YouTube, of the channels mentioned in the report, only one was showing ads or monetising its content - and this was demonetised when it was reviewed.
Twitter said its top priority was protecting the "health of the public conversation", and when people search for vaccine content, they get a prompt directing them to the NHS.
To be fair to the social media giants, scepticism about vaccines is not new. In fact, among the first "anti-vaxxers" were those who protested against the smallpox vaccine - in the 1880s, in Leicester.
It is also far from unique to the United Kingdom. The WHO called "vaccine hesitancy" one of the ten biggest threats to health worldwide last year.
In recent years, increasing numbers of parents not getting their children vaccinated has led to major measles outbreaks around the world, including in countries like the UK where the disease was previously eliminated.
Large and well-funded anti-vaccine groups, including Robert F Kennedy Jr's World Mercury Project (now Children's Health Defense), buy adverts online, and Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former doctor whose discredited study suggested a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998, has a growing influence in the US.
Anti-vaccine group have also been very vocal during the pandemic, joining forces with those who oppose the use of masks and who have taken to the streets to protest US lockdowns.
Professor Heidi Larson, an anthropologist and head of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "It's a big problem, a growing challenge, and will it affect Covid-19? Yes, I think it will."
She added: "I think many people in public health were hoping because Covid has been so bad, and had such a far reaching impact, not just on health but things like kids can't go to school, people have been losing their jobs and not able to work... I mean, if there was one moment to feature the value of vaccines, now is that moment. But unfortunately, in this context of uncertainty, it has been fertile ground for these anti-groups to leap in. It has gone in a different direction."
She said a huge amount of work needed to be put in by governments and public health officials to reassure the public that any new vaccine that is developed is safe, because it is understandable for the public to be concerned about something novel.
However, she said there was hope. The majority of people are not vociferous "anti-vaxxers", she stressed, but concerned parents or worried individuals with legitimate questions.
And these people can be persuaded, not only by information, but by necessity. For example, as the death toll from coronavirus in the UK rose, and then decreased, the numbers who were open to taking a new vaccine followed a similar path, Professor Larson explained - suggesting that people are more open to trying new things when the threat of the virus feels more serious.
A government spokesman stressed that it was everybody's responsibility to seek NHS advice on vaccines, adding: "The science is clear - vaccines save lives."
And as well as Professor Larson's many years of experience in the field - she used to head up vaccine communications for Unicef and advised the WHO - she has a more personal reason to encourage people to think again about a potential vaccine.
Her husband is Dr Peter Piot, one of the world's leading virus hunters, who very nearly died of Covid-19 earlier this year. He has described it as the "revenge of the viruses", and for Professor Larson - who also experienced much milder symptoms - it was a warning shot.
"This is not the flu. This is not something to mess around with, and not something that goes away in a couple of weeks," she said. "I personally would absolutely get the vaccine if there is evidence of it being effective. I certainly don't want to go through what he went through."
Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security
