Jennifer Rigby – Telegraph.co.uk July 7, 2020
Almost a third of people in the UK may not get a coronavirus vaccine if one is developed, according to a new poll.
Nearly one in five British adults say they would either probably or definitely refuse a vaccine, according to the YouGov poll of 1663 adults, and another 15 per cent say they don’t know yet how they feel about it.
However, scientists say that between 70 and 90 per cent of the population will have to get the new vaccine for it to be effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19, which has killed half a million people since erupting in China six months ago.
It is hard to give an exact figure on how many will need to get the vaccine, because it depends on how effective it turns out to be – if one can be developed at all. For measles, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that 95 per cent of the population get the jab.
The scepticism about a new vaccine comes after an explosion of “anti-vaxxer” content online and in social media, according to new research.
The WHO has already warned about a parallel “infodemic” alongside the pandemic, and new research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that anti-vaccine social media pages and advocates have added 7.7 million more followers in the United Kingdom and United States since the outbreak of coronavirus. The organisation said that fringe groups were “preying” on the uncertainty and fear around the pandemic to serve their own ends.
In total, the pages – which peddle false conspiracy theories including that vaccines cause Covid-19, that philanthropist Bill Gates created the pandemic, and that tests for the vaccine have left women infertile – have 57 million followers across Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, and many more may have seen that content if users share it.
The poll from YouGov and the Center also found that people who get their information from social media rather than more traditional channels are more likely to be sceptical about vaccines, and suggested that the platforms are not doing enough to counter disinformation.
The CEO of CCDH, Imran Ahmed, said: “Our hope for a return to normal life rests with scientists developing a successful vaccine for coronavirus. But social media companies’ irresponsible decision to continue to publish anti-vaccine propaganda means a vaccine may not be effective in containing the virus. The price for their greed is a cost paid in lives.”
However, the social media companies reacted hotly to suggestions that they were not responding to the problem.
A Facebook spokesperson said: “We are working to stop harmful misinformation from spreading on our platforms and have removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of COVID-19-related misinformation. We reduce vaccine misinformation in News Feed, we don’t show it in search results or recommend it to you on Facebook or Instagram, we don’t allow it in ads, and we connect people with authoritative information from recognised health experts.”
The companies also said that they were investigating content brought to their attention and would remove it if it violated standards. A YouTube spokesperson said they had taken similar steps on their channel, including “raising authoritative content” and “reducing the spread of harmful misinformation”. According to YouTube, of the channels mentioned in the report, only one was showing ads or monetising its content – and this was demonetised when it was reviewed.
To be fair to the social media giants, scepticism about vaccines is not new. In fact, among the first “anti-vaxxers” were those who protested against the smallpox vaccine – in the 1880s, in Leicester.
It is also far from unique to the United Kingdom. The WHO called “vaccine hesitancy” one of the ten biggest threats to health worldwide last year.
In recent years, increasing numbers of parents not getting their children vaccinated has led to major measles outbreaks around the world, including in countries like the UK where the disease was previously eliminated.
Large and well-funded anti-vaccine groups, including Robert F Kennedy Jr’s World Mercury Project (now Children’s Health Defense), buy adverts online, and Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former doctor whose discredited study suggested a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998, has a growing influence in the US.
Anti-vaccine group have also been very vocal during the pandemic, joining forces with those who oppose the use of masks and who have taken to the streets to protest US lockdowns
Professor Heidi Larson, an anthropologist and head of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “It’s a big problem, a growing challenge, and will it affect Covid-19? Yes, I think it will.”
She added: “I think many people in public health were hoping because Covid has been so bad, and had such a far reaching impact, not just on health but things like kids can’t go to school, people have been losing their jobs and not able to work… I mean, if there was one moment to feature the value of vaccines, now is that moment. But unfortunately, in this context of uncertainty, it has been fertile ground for these anti-groups to leap in. It has gone in a different direction.”
She said a huge amount of work needed to be put in by governments and public health officials to reassure the public that any new vaccine that is developed is safe, because it is understandable for the public to be concerned about something novel.
However, she said there was hope. The majority of people are not vociferous “anti-vaxxers”, she stressed, but concerned parents or worried individuals with legitimate questions.
And these people can be persuaded, not only by information, but by necessity. For example, as the death toll from coronavirus in the UK rose, and then decreased, the numbers who were open to taking a new vaccine followed a similar path, Professor Larson explained – suggesting that people are more open to trying new things when the threat of the virus feels more serious.
And as well as Professor Larson’s many years of experience in the field – she used to head up vaccine communications for Unicef and advised the WHO – she has a more personal reason to encourage people to think again about a potential vaccine.
Her husband is Dr Peter Piot, one of the world’s leading virus hunters, who very nearly died of Covid-19 earlier this year. He has described it as the “revenge of the viruses”, and for Professor Larson – who also experienced much milder symptoms – it was a warning shot.
“This is not the flu. This is not something to mess around with, and not something that goes away in a couple of weeks,” she said. “I personally would absolutely get the vaccine if there is evidence of it being effective. I certainly don’t want to go through what he went through.”
“For measles, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that 95 percent of the population get the jab.”
The UK has in the past been at that 95% level, yet we get ‘allegedly’ big outbreaks of measles, so many of those vaccinated, still get measles. Go figure.
I believe one-third of the general population will refuse to have a Covid jab and my best guess is that 90% of medical professionals will refuse to have it as well. From talking to people, my understanding is that there is massive skepticism about the official Covid narrative amongst medical professionals.
I shall volunteer to be one of third!
//Up to 1/3 of UK may not get Covid-19 vaccine if one is developed//
They refuse Freedom Masks and Freedom Vaccine?
GREAT! THEY WILL DIE OF COVID-19 THEN.
This is “survival of the wisest” in action 🙂
All this social division and authoritarian laws and authoritarian responses to refusal all have an effect on today’s kids, and I think those effects are what they’re after.
In 40 or so years when us oldies have died off the only people then alive will be the kids of today who’ll know nothing of freedom, only the menacing power of the state. They will have been psychologically captured. If the elite cause a civil war today there’s always a chance they’ll lose it; so all they have to do is wait 40 or so years for nature to take all us oldies, conditioning the kids to be afraid all the time, after which they’re almost guaranteed their totalitarian state. Without civil war only a natural disaster could stop them, so if they don’t blow it by moving too soon they will get their 1,000 year Reich.
so in reality the WHO is responsible for worldwide Genocide, so in actuality if they cant stand Trial for their crime they should be forced to take the Vaccine that they want the world to take, because to refuse it means that people’s deaths are no accident, and that the vaccine will do what they want it to do, and that is to reduce the world Population.
Look ‘Shlometta’ who do you think you are fooling ??
The bottom line is: how do you know what is in the vaccine? You cannot test it yourself so rely on what you are told – which at best could be inaccurate and at worst false. Neither can you be certain how you will react. Once it is in your body you cannot easily remove it. I know someone who had COVID this May and found it to be like a very bad dose of the flu, which laid them low for a week. I have also heard that the old people vaccinated against the flu have reacted very badly to this virus. Finally if catching CV19 does not give you immunity, how can a vaccine, which relies on you producing your own antibodies?
a real and existential crisis like autism/ vaccine-related chronic diseases break out has never been mentioned in the article. that says it all.
Looks like we are heading down the road to civil war , might just as well die fighting for your freedom and that of your children as sit on your arse and do nothing but accept their poisons. Freedom has always had its price and its always the same people who have to pay the piper so if the battle for freedom come again lets make a proper job of it this time.
Does anyone really think that after the years of central establishment planning, ruthless government and totally unwarranted shutdown measures, the unprecedented propaganda and media hype, and all of the faked sick and death rates, that they will not let go a more lethal version of the virus this Fall to really scare everyone back into their lock-step plans? They had unexpected and disappointing results from the Covid 19 version after its release into the general population, and that fact (like it or not) has been proven by their fake stats and the empty hospital wards they have represented as war zones. It still remains that very few if any political leaders in our nations are willing to challenge the ruling establishment and expose the psyop and the perpetrators, likely out of fear of being ruined, or threats like “being suicided”, or like in most totalitarian nations “being disappeared”.
Forget your ideologies and your anointed visions. They will not really change anything or give you a tangible hope for an improved world. Nothing will change until we govern ourselves and all of those who govern us with an obedience to the facts, such that no one has the right to lie to anyone, and especially those in positions of authority towards us without their ruination and sever punishments as a consequence. If we start there then we can at least have some trust in reason, and in reasoning with those of opposing interests. It is by making our interests and intentions known then based on full disclosure of all of the relevant the facts, we will be better able to decide differences based upon agreed principles of right and wrong and common decency.
You want transparency, then first want the truth and get rid of all those entitlement types in your midst who thrive on secrecy, deception and think that denying the truth and distorting the facts is their right and privilege. Otherwise we are choosing to be ruled by stealth, ignorance and fear by the same grasping, old-world monsters trying to pass off themselves and their envisioned NWO as something new, but in reality is actually their endgame for global hegemony over everything and everyone.
It takes 15 years to thoroughly test a vaccine. There is currently no vaccine for any form of corona virus. And yet Kill Gates initially wanted mandatory vaccines for the entire planet. He has modified his position slightly say that there will be a choice. What he didn’t say was that they are going to introduce some form of health certificate which will deny those who have not been fully vaccinated access to transport, financial credit, et al. Anything they choose. This evil plan cannot be accepted, full stop.
Tiredoftosh, it wasn’t “like’ a very bad dose of the flu, it was the flu
Fred B, they didn’t release anything, it was purely media driven and the lockdown and withdrawal of medical services to nursing homes provided the excess deaths. If they release a bio weapon, they lose control of the narrative and put themselves at risk – something the one percent never do.
As regards the YouGov poll, bear in mind these people ask those they think likely to give them the answer they want – in this case, enthusiasm for the vaccine. I have spoken to numerous people about this – most recently a very respectable middle aged lady in M&S and even those who believe Covid 19 exists, have firmly stated that they won’t be taking it under any circumstances. Based on nothing more than a hunch, I would say over 50% will refuse it.
Freedom Masks and Freedom Vaccine??? Survival of the wisest??? What an absolute riot!!! I’m glad I’m not an utterly pathetic, unthinking sheep like so many. Sheep don’t survive long after they’re led off to the slaughter.
Activisor: Let’s start on the premise that Covid is a bioweapon based inside something that looks like an exosome. They had the vaccine/antidote years ago. Timing is everything, so take note when they role out the vaccine and they have many 100s of millions of doses… then you will know these vaccines will have been in storage for years.
They’ll never release a full-on deadly bio-weapon. Models show that would be really, really bad for everyone, including themselves. The main problem is nuclear power plants, hundreds around the world that would meltdown if crucial workers were to suddenly drop dead of a killer virus.
No, they obviously decided that a fake pandemic would do just fine to achieve their objectives. If depopulation is their goal the vaccine is the key, one way or another.
M: the kind of people who work in nuclear power stations and those who are tasked to protect these facilities are the kind of people who would accept a needle if they were told it was vital for national security. I already hold the view that the majority of people in Western countries were pre vaccinated in some way and we must keep in mind that strains of Covid bioweapon in China and Iran are not the same as those in Europe and the US. We know that most badly affected Western states are rigging their Covid data.
If you follow the fake news, you will see NGO’s already generating the narrative that we are going to get lots of viruses. This will pan out like the fake war on terror and each wave will take down more and more people.