A STUDY in Bradford found an “intensity of misinformation” around Covid-19 could impact people’s willingness to be vaccinated.

The research, by the Bradford Institute for Health Research’s Covid Scientific Advisory Group, was undertaken to gauge people’s Covid-19 beliefs; their interactions with health (mis) information during the pandemic and attitudes towards a vaccine.

Their paper - Understanding Covid-19 misinformation and vaccine hesitancy in context - puts into focus the impact of ‘fake news’; the way it spreads on social media and the damaging impact it can have in the context of a public health crisis. 

Researchers said: “Participants spoke about a wide range of emotive misinformation they had encountered regarding Covid-19, resulting in confusion, distress and mistrust. Vaccine hesitancy could be attributed to three prominent factors: safety concerns, negative stories and personal knowledge.

"The more confused, distressed and mistrusting participants felt about their social worlds during the pandemic, the less positive they were about a vaccine.”

The study found that amid conflicting information sources - an “avalanche of information” surrounding Covid-19 - social media stories gained a lot of traction in Bradford.

While some were national or international, others had a more local focus including fears that health professionals at Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) were injecting people with the Covid-19 virus, or killing people with Covid-19; BRI was inflating the numbers of people with Covid-19 and the health service was so overwhelmed that ambulances would not arrive in an emergency. One claimed that children could be taken into care if they tested positive for Covid-19 during school hours.

One participant said: “So many people were talking about it and the way that the video was made it was like a proper…it convinced you. So I think everybody believed it. But then afterwards they said it was fake news. But by the time you find out the video was fake, you already believed it, you’ve stressed yourself out already.”

The study said the “sheer volume of messages coupled with the fact that people they trusted were sharing them proved difficult to ignore”.

That, along with the conditions of the pandemic and lockdown, was said to have accelerated the spread of stories and the impact.

The study said: “Stories shared were frequently very emotive, catching participants at a particularly anxious time when they were more willing to believe them.”

One woman spent the whole day crying after watching a video which stated that on a particular day, ambulances would not be dispatched for asthmatic patients and people would be left at home to die. Her son had asthma and before she found out it was ‘fake’ she had already shared the video amongst her family and friends because she was so upset and concerned, researchers said. 

One participant said social media stories spread “like wildfire” and the study highlighted: “The more controversial or dramatic the posts or videos were, the more they spread. Individuals in these videos were (or were posing as) trusted professionals, such as a teacher, nurse or doctor. Being able to deliver a video in multiple languages indicated higher levels of education and trustworthiness.”

Researchers said that one survey in Bradford indicated a “higher level of vaccine hesitancy than the UK as a whole” - out of 222 people, only 34 per cent said they would definitely have it and 11 per cent did not want it.

“Of the 20 people we interviewed for this study, nine were happy to have a Covid-19 vaccine (with caveats around safety), five felt very mixed, and six said that they would not be willing to have it,” said CSAG. 

They concluded: “Our study found there is an intensity of misinformation being spread about Covid-19 in Bradford and this has impacted on participant’s lives by evoking confusion, distress and mistrust during the pandemic. Heightened levels of confusion, distress and mistrust are related to a lower proclivity towards Covid-19 vaccine uptake.

"As is often found with the inverse law of care, the people most likely to be affected by Covid-19 are those who are most hesitant towards the vaccine. Of critical importance to decision makers is the ability to understand misinformation in its local context and countering it in a sensitive and non-judgemental way via trusted local people whose opinion is valued in their community.”