Sources based in China and Russia, some appearing to be state-sponsored, are involved in a global disinformation campaign to discredit Western COVID-19 vaccines, including the vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. News coverage of deaths or illness occurring after vaccination with Western vaccines, occurring anywhere in the world, are being amplified to sow doubt in these vaccine’s safety and efficacy. Other talking points include:
· Pfizer and Moderna shots are risky or deadly
· That Western governments and media are covering up illness and deaths due to these vaccines
· The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is concerned more with profit than safety and transparency
· That mRNA technology is unsafe
These talking points and others are now being echoed and elaborated on by US-based conspiracy groups, anti-government groups, anti-mask/public health groups and/or personal liberty groups, and anti-vaccine groups.
Continuing to regularly promote vaccines and their safety and efficacy is itself debunking this misinformation. While appropriate government agencies should be addressing state-sponsored disinformation, public health doing so will distract from priority talking points. Additionally, it is important not to discredit the legitimate questions and concerns of the American public by giving the impression they are coming from foreign sources. Foreign sources are amplifying actual concerns. Further, as more people get vaccinated, morbidity and mortality will naturally occur among people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine; this is because at a population level, illness and death are always occurring. There is to-date no evidence COVID-19 vaccines are linked to deaths. Suggested talking points would be to emphasize that adverse events after vaccination are investigated, there is no evidence COVID-19 vaccines are linked to deaths, and to educate on the normal, expected level of illness and death in the population. Familiarity with baseline levels of morbidity and mortality, along with the current incidence of COVID-19 deaths, can aid communicators in explaining coincidence vs. causation.
The Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) was formed in 2020 to coordinate and amplify public health messaging on COVID-19 and increase Americans’ confidence in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health officials.
Learn More
A tech CEO posted a meme questioning what happened to all the “dangerous” COVID-19 variants. The heavily circulated image has been viewed over 69 million
A group of activists in Japan reportedly organized a protest to oppose the World Health Organization’s international pandemic agreement, which critics falsely claim will give
A so-called “analysis” of CDC data falsely claims to have identified 780,000 reports of serious vaccine injuries during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, including Bell’s Palsy,
