Trending Misinformation about Vaccines & COVID-19
- A photo of a doctor standing in an empty auxiliary care site for COVID-19 patients is being misrepresented as evidence that the pandemic is fake, despite cases surging across the country. The photo was taken the day the site was opened and shared by a physician on Twitter to demonstrate the gravity of the situation, but has since been shared by people to share falsehoods about the site and the ongoing pandemic.
- Comparisons have been made in recent weeks between the severity of COVID-19 and the flu, in an effort to downplay the severity of COVID-19. COVID-19 is not just a “bad flu,” and is caused by a different virus than the flu. While hundreds of thousands of people worldwide die from the flu each year, there have been over 1.5 million COVID-deaths reported worldwide to date.
- Videos on Facebook made from altered and out-of-context clips are perpetuating the myth that the COVID-19 vaccine will contain a tracking microchip that will be inserted into vaccine recipients. An optional RFID chip could be included on a syringe’s label to confirm information about the vaccine (comparable to a bar code), but will not be part of the injected substance itself.