Misinformation could prove disastrous and there is no dearth of examples of it especially during Covid-19 pandemic. Hundreds of people died in Iran after consuming toxic methanol, mistakenly believing that it could cure them of the covid-19. The scale of misinformation during the pandemic has been such that it prompted the World Health Organisation to coin the term “infodemic”.
Humans are curious and innovative species and want to understand the world around them and stay up to date on the challenges they face and how to overcome them. The pandemic in the contemporary world, having anxious and fearful populace, took the deluge of misinformation to incredible levels.
The COVID vaccines start rolling out from January 16 and on expected lines, scaremongering is likely to soar as well.
India has approved two vaccines in emergency-use mode — Covishield by the Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Ltd. While it still is unclear who gets which vaccine, there are more doses of Covishield available at present than Covaxin, nearly five to one, and it could take some time before the millions prioritised get one of their doses.
Covaxin belongs to a league of injections that has been approved sans establishing its efficacy— the extent to which vaccination protects from the virus. There have been differences among scientists such as on the best testing strategy, treatment, extent of infection, but none more divisive than on the approval of Covaxin.
Earlier this week, Jammu and Kashmir received the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine—1,46,500 of Covishield doses. While data on Covaxin is relatively vague, the opposite can be said about Covishield. On comparative analysis, the latter seems to be on higher pedestal than the former. However, there is already large-scale hesitancy, encompassing delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccine, among the people including the healthcare workers.
While the need has been felt for enough people to get vaccinated against Covid in order to stop the pandemic, the vaccine hesitancy poses a serious problem, and factors attributing to it need to be addressed.
It is not the case that the misinformation cannot be countered. It can be answered with consistent and transparent sharing of science-based information about the vaccines in a language easily accessible to common people. there is no doubt people have a right to know what’s in the vaccine, how it will be administered, how it will work in the body, and what reactions or side-effects if any they can expect, and how would those be addressed. The answer is with the government and should be shared timely.
