SAN JOSE, California – On an unpleasantly hot day in February, two men working with a local community group went door to door in an ethnically diverse environment to persuade people to sign up for Covid-19 vaccinations .
It was just after 11am when they encountered the first person who was reluctant to get a shot. Two doors down and 30 minutes later it happened again. For almost an hour, they stand on a lawn with George Rodriguez, 67, talking about the environment, the pandemic and the available vaccinations.
‘I see all this stuff online about how it’s going to change my DNA. It does something to your DNA, right? asked Mr. Rodriguez, who is Spanish. ‘There’s just too much stuff, too much conflicting information. And then I hear that even if you get the vaccine, you can still get sick. Why would I get it then? ”
Black and Spanish communities, hit harder by the pandemic, whose vaccination figures lag behind white people, have been confronted with conspiracy theories, rumors and misleading news reports about vaccinations on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and private online messages , health authorities and misinformation, researchers said.
The misinformation varies, such as claims that vaccines can alter DNA – which is not true – and that the vaccines do not work, or that colored people are used as guinea pigs. Much of this misinformation comes from friends, family, and celebrities who are bubbling up in communities that have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic and who are experiencing other obstacles to being vaccinated.
Foreign news agencies and anti-vaccine activists have also aggressively sought to question the safety and efficacy of vaccines manufactured in the United States and Europe.
Incorrect information has hampered efforts by some states to reach black and Hispanic residents, especially as health officials have provided special registration codes for vaccine appointments. Instead of an advantage, in some cases the codes have become the basis for new false narratives.
“What it may seem like when doctors who prioritize communities of color are read online by some people: ‘Oh, the doctors want us to be the guinea pigs first,'” said Kolina Koltai, a University researcher. of Washington studying online conspiracy theories. “I’ve seen people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse – just mention it – say that the codes are a way to impose the vaccine on color communities as an experiment.”
Research conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-February showed a striking inequality between racial groups receiving the vaccine in 34 countries that reported the data.
The state figures vary widely. In Texas, where people who identify Spanish make up 42 percent of the population, only 20 percent of the vaccinations went to the group. In Mississippi, where black people make up 38 percent of the population, they received 22 percent of the vaccinations. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the vaccination rate for black Americans is half that of white people, and the gap for Hispanics is even larger.
Although researchers believe that the lack of easy access to vaccination sites may be the biggest cause of the shortage, misinformation plays a role.
The belief that doctors are interested in experimenting on certain communities has deep roots among some groups, Ms. Koltai said. Anti-vaccine activists have drawn historical examples, including Nazi doctors conducting experiments in concentration camps, and Baltimore Hospital where 70 years ago cancer cells were collected without her consent from Henrietta Lacks, a black mother of five.
‘The thing about misinformation is that it works best when it’s built on a core of truth. In this case, many color communities do not trust the medical institution because they do not have the best history with it, ”says Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, a group that supports women of color who are being harassed. online.
An experiment conducted in 1943 on nearly 400 black men in Tuskegee, Ala., Is one of the most researched examples of medical abuse of the Black community. For four decades, scientists observed the men who they said were infected with syphilis but did not offer treatments so that they could study the progression of the disease. When the experiment came to light in the 1970s, it was condemned by the medical community as a major violation of ethical standards.
Researchers studying disinformation have reported on Tuskegee on social media in recent years. While Tuskegee garnered several hundred listings a week on Facebook and Twitter, there were several notable spikes that coincided with the launch of Covid-19 vaccines, according to Zignal Labs, a media insight company.
In the last week of November, when the pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer announced promising results in their final studies on the safety of their Covid-19 vaccines, Tuskegee reports rose to 7,000 per week.
There was another silence until mid-December, when the Food and Drug Administration announced that the vaccines had been approved. According to Zignal, reports from Tuskegee have climbed to nearly 5,000, with some of the most viral tweets calling the coronavirus vaccinations ‘the New Tuskegee study’.
Doctors believe that they are also struggling with hesitation against vaccines in other demographic groups. Last month, a poll by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 23 percent of Republicans said they would “definitely” not be vaccinated, while 21 percent said they would “probably” not get a coronavirus vaccine. not.
Native American groups have struggled with the fear of vaccines in their communities, and doctors report that some of their Chinese-American patients have distributed articles in Chinese languages about vaccinations made in the United States.
Many black and Hispanic people have already struggled to make appointments and reach vaccination sites that are often in whiter, richer neighborhoods. And officials in some cities say people from the neighborhoods have also flooded the vaccination systems and needed supplies intended for poorer blacks and Hispanics.
Incorrect information about who may receive the vaccine, when it is available and how it has been tested for safety, Ms. Mitchell said.
At a mass vaccination site at the Oakland Coliseum on a recent Friday afternoon, before Anthony, 68-year-old Anthony Jones agreed last month to get his chance, there was only one last thing he wanted to look up on Facebook. He pulled out his phone and started typing, waving his grandson down, who drove him to his appointment.
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“I read something about a woman who died from this thing, and I want to know if she is black,” he said. Jones said, who after a few minutes of browsing could not find the Facebook message he was looking for. “You see a lot of things on the internet that make you think that as a black man you should not take this vaccine.”
Mr. Jones eventually gave up. As he walked in for his shot, he remembered that the article he saw was on WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, and from a website he did not recognize.
“My grandson says I should not believe everything I read on the internet,” he said. “I like to believe my grandson.”
The next day, Daniel Lander, 38, was recruiting a neighborhood in San Jose with Armand Mateos, 28. For the past five months, Mr. Lander door to door in a program run by Working Partnerships USA, a Silicon Valley-based community organization. The group is working with local officials to clear up misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines.
‘We hear people say they’ve seen some celebrity share something on Twitter or Instagram that makes them think the vaccine is a bad idea. “People appreciate the opinion of people they look up to, and these celebrities have a lot of influence,” he said. Lander said.
While with mr. Rodriguez, a muscular man and an enthusiastic talker, chatted, Mr. Lander and mr. Mateos said they sympathize with his concerns. They said they had many of the same questions, and explained their decision to get the vaccines themselves. Mr. Rodriguez asked where they got their shots and how it made them feel.
Mr. Mateos reflexively touched his left arm, where he received the vaccine last week. It hurt, he said, and he did not want it sugar. But he was convinced that it was safe and that it would keep him and his loved ones from getting sick.
‘They read all this stuff online, from various news sources, which is confusing. But then they meet me as someone who had the chance, and I can give them some correct answers, ‘said Mr. Mateos said. He added that many people quoted articles in the Spanish versions of Russian state-sponsored media networks, Sputnik and Russia Today. “They like American vaccines a lot. People read those stories and do not want to get the chance. ”
When the two men left, Mr. shouted. Rodriguez out that he will get the chance that week. They made sure he had the phone number and websites he needed to register, and continued down the street.
“I think I’ll get it later this week,” he said. Rodriguez said. “I do not make promises, but I think they convinced me.”