Social Media Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories pose a Great Threat to Successful COVID‐19 Vaccination Among Adults ages 18‐23

Federico, Francesca; Esmaeli‐Azad, Babak

There are two main paths to herd immunity for COVID‐19 — vaccines or natural infection. Vaccination for SARS‐CoV‐2 (the virus that causes COVID‐19) is the ideal approach to achieving herd immunity. However, reaching herd immunity through vaccination has several challenges such as certain groups’ objection to vaccines due to religious objections, fears regarding possible risks or skepticism about the benefits. This objection and skepticism is of great concern to the current COVID‐19 vaccination campaign. If the proportion of vaccinated people in a community falls below the herd immunity threshold, exposure to contagious SARS‐CoV‐2 could result in a new surge of of COVID‐19. This concern is further magnified by the recent CDC findings that people with no symptoms transmit more than half (59%) of all COVID‐19 cases. This number includes 35% of new cases from people who infect others prior to showing symptoms and 24% of new cases from people who never develop symptoms. The spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories regarding COVID‐19 vaccination poses a great threat to the vaccination campaign of young adults. In an effort to further understand this current social media misinformation narrative, we surveyed college students between the ages of 18‐23 and their willingness to take the vaccine. Our survey included “fact checking” pieces of social media misinformation and investigated whether adults in this age group have been influenced by widely circulated misinformation. Our survey also included questions to investigate the potential that a significant portion of people in this age group might completely oppose vaccinations. Our findings further support the need for efficacious therapeutics for natural viral infection as an alternative to vaccination. Providing the population with an assortment of therapeutic options will reduce death caused by natural viral infection as the U.S. and world population attempts to reach herd immunity.