Trending Misinformation about Vaccines & COVID-19
- A video claiming that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine uses lung tissue from an aborted fetus using MRC-5 cell lines continued to be shared this week. A spokesperson from AstraZeneca confirmed they do not use MRC-5 cell lines. There are many vaccines and medicines that depend on human cell lines for production, but these vaccines do not.
- Posts on Facebook falsely claim that mask mandates are contributing to the spread of COVID-19. The claim is false; multiple studies have demonstrated that masks reduce the spread of the virus.
- On Twitter and Facebook, claims that food stamps (WIC and SNAP) and rent assistance will be withheld from people who do not get vaccinated against COVID-19 are spreading on social media. The claims are a misrepresentation of a report from a working group at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health and Security which states that COVID-19 vaccines could be given out at the same time as food and rent assistance. The authors of the report confirmed they are not advocating for such services to be contingent upon vaccination.
- A misleading comparison between COVID-19 mortality and vaccine efficacy is being made on social media after AstraZeneca and Pfizer announced their vaccines were more than 90% effective. Vaccine efficacy and disease survival rates are separate measures that cannot be directly compared. It is important to consider that while the exact mortality rate of COVID-19 is unknown, a hypothetical 1% death rate, often stated in misleading posts, is still a very large number of deaths. A 90% efficiency rate for a vaccine would reduce the spread and death toll from the virus.
- A post circulating on Facebook states that a COVID-19 vaccine will not be as effective as currently predicted, because there are no effective vaccines for the cold or flu. Fact-checking sites have highlighted that no vaccine exists for the common cold because it is caused by several families of viruses, and while a vaccine does exist for the flu, its effectiveness varies. However, this does not have bearing on a COVID-19 vaccine, given that COVID-19 is caused by a new coronavirus, and there has been a huge global effort to accelerate clinical trials for vaccines to ensure they are developed safely and efficiently.