As America Battles COVID-19, Flu Vaccine Misinformation Spreads

Washington: US health officials are pushing Americans to get a flu shot to help prevent hospitals already busy fighting COVID-19 from being overwhelmed this winter, but false claims threaten your efforts.

Misinformation on social media, particularly that a flu vaccine will increase your risk of contracting the coronavirus or cause you to test positive for COVID-19, will not, is undermining the public health message.

A false claim circulating on Facebook and Instagram said that a flu vaccine would increase the likelihood of COVID-19 infection by 36 percent. Another on Instagram said that Sanofi’s flu vaccine, Fluzone, was 2.4 times more deadly than COVID-19.

A national study from the University of Michigan found that one in three parents planned to skip the flu vaccine for their children this year, and mothers and fathers pointed to misinformation, including the belief that it is not effective, as a reason.

“Primary care providers have a very important role to play in this flu season,” said Sarah Clark, a research scientist at the Michigan Center for Research and Evaluation of Children’s Health Medicine, who led the study.

“They need to send parents a clear and strong message about the importance of the flu vaccine.”

But with daily COVID-19 infections rising to record levels in several US states, false information continues to be a barrier for people to get vaccinated.

Jeanine Guidry, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies health messages on social media, said: “There is so much misinformation related to COVID-19 and I really think that extends” to the flu.

Amelia Jamison, a disinformation researcher and doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University, agreed.

“The flu is trapped in some of the narratives that we see about the coronavirus,” he said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), only 49.2 percent of people got the flu vaccine during the 2018-19 season.

In addition to misinformation, measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 resulted in fewer in-person preventive medical visits, during which many receive the vaccine. And other flu vaccination clinics typically offered by employers, churches, or schools have been on hold.

High unemployment due to the economic consequences of the pandemic has also left millions of Americans without health insurance, meaning states will have to shoulder the cost of the vaccine for more patients.

While the effectiveness of the flu vaccine can vary depending on whether the strain of flu circulating in communities matches the strain of the vaccine, the CDC said it prevents millions of illnesses each year.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the vaccine for all children older than six months.

Flu vaccine expert Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Center for Disease Control said: “We saw no association in children or adults between the flu vaccine and the risk of coronavirus.”

While social media platforms harbor misinformation, they also take steps to spread reliable guidance on vaccines.

This week, Facebook announced that it would begin directing US users to information about where they can get the flu shot and vowed to reject ads that discourage vaccination.

Before the pandemic, Twitter and Pinterest implemented policies to redirect searches for certain vaccine-related keywords to public health organizations.

But Adam Dunn, director of Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health at the University of Sydney, said more can be done.

Methods developed to encourage user engagement on social media “could be used more judiciously to guide people to credible, evidence-based information,” Dunn said.

He also advocated for the creation of more “vaccine advocacy communities that are welcoming, honest and aligned with a diversity of worldviews.”

Libby Richards, associate professor at the Purdue School of Nursing, said that “a flu shot is more important than ever this year,” warning that severe cases of COVID-19 and the flu require the same equipment to save lives. .

“Receiving the flu vaccine will not only provide personal health protection, it will also help reduce the burden of respiratory illness on our already overburdened healthcare system.”

Richards encouraged people to take the time to verify the information.

“There are many myths about the flu vaccine that can clearly be disproved with a little background reading,” he said.