scholarly journals Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172110138
Author(s):  
Melisa Basol ◽  
Jon Roozenbeek ◽  
Manon Berriche ◽  
Fatih Uenal ◽  
William P. McClanahan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Societal Challenge ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Misinformation about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pressing societal challenge. Across two studies, one preregistered ( n1 = 1771 and n2 = 1777), we assess the efficacy of two ‘prebunking’ interventions aimed at improving people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 misinformation across three different languages (English, French and German). We find that Go Viral!, a novel five-minute browser game, (a) increases the perceived manipulativeness of misinformation about COVID-19, (b) improves people’s attitudinal certainty (confidence) in their ability to spot misinformation and (c) reduces self-reported willingness to share misinformation with others. The first two effects remain significant for at least one week after gameplay. We also find that reading real-world infographics from UNESCO improves people’s ability and confidence in spotting COVID-19 misinformation (albeit with descriptively smaller effect sizes than the game). Limitations and implications for fake news interventions are discussed.

Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Roozenbeek ◽  
Sarah Dryhurst
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Societal Challenge ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

<p>Misinformation about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a pressing societal challenge. Across two studies, one preregistered (n = 1,771 and n = 1,777), we assess the efficacy of two “prebunking” interventions aimed at improving people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques commonly used in COVID-19 misinformation, across three different cultural contexts (English, French, and German). We find that Go Viral!, a novel 5-minute “prebunking” browser game, (a) increases the perceived manipulativeness of misinformation about COVID-19, (b) improves people’s confidence in their ability to spot misinformation, and (c) reduces self-reported willingness to share misinformation with others. The first two effects remain significant for at least one week after gameplay. We also find that reading real-world infographics from UNESCO improve people’s ability and confidence in spotting COVID-19 misinformation (albeit with a smaller effect size than the game). </p>

Antisemitic or Bordering on Antisemitic? Grey Areas in Romanian Fake News Discourses in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 121-127
Author(s):  
Anca-Simina Martin
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Elie Wiesel ◽  
Working Definition ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Us ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Jews as a collective have long served as scapegoats for epidemics and pandemics, such as the Bubonic Plague and, according to some scholars, the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic. This practice reemerged in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when more and more fake news outlets in the US and Europe started publishing articles on a perceived linkage between Jewish communities and the novel coronavirus. What this article aims to achieve is to facilitate a dialogue between the observations on the phenomenon made by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania and the latest related EU reports, with a view to charting its beginnings in Romania in relation to other European countries and in an attempt to see whether Romania, like France and Germany, has witnessed the emergence of “grey area” discourses which are not fully covered by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.

scholarly journals Assessment of Anti-SARS CoV-2 seroprevalence in habitants of Assam (AASSHA): report of the first serosurvey in Assam

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 2490
Author(s):  
Jyotismita Pathak ◽  
Mridusmita Das ◽  
Khalil Siddique
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Blood Samples ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Background: Today, there is a pressing need to identify the proportion of people immune to the infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) so that public health policies can be formulated accordingly for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping this in mind, we designed a serosurvey in Assam with aims to estimate the prevalence of infection as well as the infection to case ratio of the novel coronavirus in Assam.Methods: A total of 9 districts belonging to three different strata of districts were randomly selected for the study. In these selected districts, blood samples were collected from a sample of population and were checked for the antibodies (IgG type). Those testing reactive for the mentioned antibodies were considered to have been infected ever before the onset of the study.Results: A total of 2390 study subjects were tested for the presence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2. The proportion of people harboring antibodies against the infection was found to be 23.7 percent.Conclusions: The serosurvey revealed that the proportion of people having antibodies was lower than that required for attaining herd immunity levels in a population. The case to infection ratios reveal that there is a large chunk of population who didn’t know about their infection.

scholarly journals COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Rovetta ◽  
Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula
Keyword(s):  
Web Search ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Campania Region ◽  
Search Volume ◽  
Government Websites ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

BACKGROUND Since the beginning of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, fake news and misleading information have circulated worldwide, which can profoundly affect public health communication. OBJECTIVE We investigated online search behavior related to the COVID-19 outbreak and the attitudes of “infodemic monikers” (ie, erroneous information that gives rise to interpretative mistakes, fake news, episodes of racism, etc) circulating in Italy. METHODS By using Google Trends to explore the internet search activity related to COVID-19 from January to March 2020, article titles from the most read newspapers and government websites were mined to investigate the attitudes of infodemic monikers circulating across various regions and cities in Italy. Search volume values and average peak comparison (APC) values were used to analyze the results. RESULTS Keywords such as “novel coronavirus,” “China coronavirus,” “COVID-19,” “2019-nCOV,” and “SARS-COV-2” were the top infodemic and scientific COVID-19 terms trending in Italy. The top five searches related to health were “face masks,” “amuchina” (disinfectant), “symptoms of the novel coronavirus,” “health bulletin,” and “vaccines for coronavirus.” The regions of Umbria and Basilicata recorded a high number of infodemic monikers (APC weighted total >140). Misinformation was widely circulated in the Campania region, and racism-related information was widespread in Umbria and Basilicata. These monikers were frequently searched (APC weighted total >100) in more than 10 major cities in Italy, including Rome. CONCLUSIONS We identified a growing regional and population-level interest in COVID-19 in Italy. The majority of searches were related to amuchina, face masks, health bulletins, and COVID-19 symptoms. Since a large number of infodemic monikers were observed across Italy, we recommend that health agencies use Google Trends to predict human behavior as well as to manage misinformation circulation in Italy.

scholarly journals Impact of Vaccination on the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from U.S. States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Chen ◽  
Hanwei Huang ◽  
Jiandong Ju ◽  
Ruoyan Sun ◽  
Jialiang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Sir Model ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Vaccination Programs ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Governments worldwide are implementing mass vaccination programs in an effort to end the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccination program and predicted the path to herd immunity in the U.S. We estimated that vaccination reduced the total number of new cases by 4.4 million (from 33.0 to 28.6 million), prevented approximately 0.12 million hospitalizations (from 0.89 to 0.78 million), and decreased the population infection rate by 1.34 percentage points (from 10.10–8.76%). We built a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model with vaccination to predict herd immunity. Our model predicts that the U.S. can achieve herd immunity by the last week of July 2021, with a cumulative vaccination coverage of 60.2%. Herd immunity could be achieved earlier with a faster vaccination pace, lower vaccine hesitancy, and higher vaccine effectiveness. These findings improve our understanding of the COVID-19 vaccination and can inform future public health policies.

scholarly journals Prevalence of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Poznań, Poland, after the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 541
Author(s):  
Dagny Lorent ◽  
Rafal Nowak ◽  
Carolina Roxo ◽  
Elzbieta Lenartowicz ◽  
Aleksandra Makarewicz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Igg Antibodies ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

In comparison to other European countries, during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Poland reported a relatively low number of confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. To estimate the scale of the pandemic in Poland, a serosurvey of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 was performed after the first wave of COVID-19 in Europe (March–May 2020). Within this study, we collected samples from 28 July to 24 September 2020 and, based on the ELISA results, we found that 1.67% (25/1500, 95% CI 1.13–2.45) of the Poznan (Poland) metropolitan area’s population had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 after the first wave of COVID-19. However, the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies was confirmed with immunoblotting in 56% (14/25) samples, which finally resulted in a decrease in seroprevalence, i.e., 0.93% (14/1500, 95% CI 0.56–1.56). The positive anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG results were associated with age, occupation involving constant contact with people, travelling abroad, non-compliance with epidemiological recommendations and direct contact with the novel coronavirus. Our findings confirm the low SARS-CoV-2 incidence in Poland and imply that the population had little herd immunity heading into the second and third wave of the pandemic, and therefore, that herd immunity contributed little to preventing the high numbers of SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19-related deaths in Poland during these subsequent waves.

scholarly journals Invincibility threatens vaccination intentions during a pandemic

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258432
Author(s):  
James M. Leonhardt ◽  
Garret Ridinger ◽  
Yu Rong ◽  
Amir Talaei-Khoe
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Behavior ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Preventative Health ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Level Analysis

Some people feel they are invincible to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). They believe that being infected with COVID-19 would not be a serious threat to their health. While these people may or may not be correct in their personal risk assessment, we find that such perceived invincibility may undermine community efforts to achieve herd immunity. Multi-level analysis of survey respondents across 51 countries finds that perceived invincibility from COVID-19 is negatively associated with believing there is a need to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in one’s community (n = 218,956) and one’s willingness to inoculate against the disease (n = 71,148). These effects are most pronounced among individuals from countries lower in cultural collectivism (e.g., USA, UK, Canada) and highlight the need to consider the interplay of individual and cultural factors in our efforts to understand, predict, and promote preventative health behavior during a pandemic.

scholarly journals Early Days of the Novel Coronavirus: Public Response in Social Media during the First Month of the Outbreak

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Maris Kuperjanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Flow Of Information

The aim of the article is to give an overview of the first month of the novel coronavirus outbreak and of the public reactions to the news in media comments and social media environments in both local Estonian and global contexts. The pandemic was still ongoing at the time the article was published and, with some modifications and new emphases, vernacular reactions in the media (incl. social media) continued flourishing. During the first month (January 2020), the growing flow of information and rapid escalation of the situation made the topic more noticeable in both the media and social media, and thus provided a fertile basis for jokes and internet memes, legends, fake news, misinformation, conspiracy theories, etc., as was the case with the former bigger epidemics and pandemics. As it has also been observed previously, the consequences of some fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories may often be more harmful for society than the disease itself. Several motifs and storylines are universal and surge as similar situations arise both in Estonia and all over the world. The article also presents a selection of more prominent topics and examples of the outbreak from social media environments during the initial phase of international awareness of the novel coronavirus.

scholarly journals COVID-19 in Moscow: prognoses and scenarios

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. V. Tamm
Keyword(s):  
Critically Ill ◽  
Critically Ill Patients ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Published Data ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Epidemic Control ◽  
Slow Development ◽  
Medium Level ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Aim: to present a mathematical model of the development of COVID-19 in Moscow along with the analysis of some scenarios of epidemic control and possible epidemic consequences.Materials and Methods. The modeling of the epidemics was based on the extended SEIR model proposed lately in the group of Prof. R. Neher and realized as a freely available software program. The authors based the choice of the parameters of modeling on published data on the epidemiological properties of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and open access data on the registered cases of COVID-19 in Moscow for 8-27 March 2020.Results. Five potential scenarios of the development of COVID-19 epidemics are studied. The scenarios are differed by the levels of the control measures: Null Scenario corresponded to the lack of protective measures, Scenario A – mild measures of the epidemic control (closing of schools and universities, recommendations for senior citizens to stay inside), Scenario B – medium level of control (closing of all public places, recommendation for the citizens to stay inside), Scenarios C and D – complete lockdown (from the beginning of May 2020 within Scenario C and from the beginning of April 2020 within Scenario D). It was shown that within the Null Scenario, the lethality from the novel coronavirus in Moscow will exceed 100 thousand people, and the number of critically ill patients on the peak of the epidemics will exceed the capacities of the system of healthcare. Scenarios A and B did not provide for a radical decrease in the fatality rate, and the number of critically ill patients at the peak of epidemics will still exceed the capacities of the system of healthcare. Besides, within Scenario B, the epidemics will last for more than a year. Scenarios C and D will allow for the control of epidemics and a significant decrease in the rate of letha lity (by 30 and 400 times, respectively). At the same time, these two scenarios prevent the population from developing herd immunity, which would result in the population susceptibility to repeated epidemics outbreaks. Conclusion. The scenarios intended for the slow development of herd immunity in the conditions of epidemic control would not bring sufficient results: the lethality would remain unacceptably high, the capacities of the system of healthcare would be overloaded, and the time of limiting measures would be unacceptably long. Such measures as complete lockdown would stop the present epidemics. The earlier they are introduced, the more efficient will be the results. To prevent further repeated outbreaks of the epidemics, it is necessary to establish a system of available, quick, and efficient testing in combination with point isolation of the infected patients and their contacts. 

Infodemia global. Desórdenes informativos, narrativas fake y fact-checking en la crisis de la Covid-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David García-Marín
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Frequency Of Occurrence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Video Content ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Fact Checking ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Textual Form ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Media Formats

Covid-19 has triggered not only a pandemic that endangers our social, economic, and health systems but also an infodemic resulting from the prolific spread of fake news, hoaxes, and misleading content. From a statistical-descriptive perspective and using content analysis, this research analyzes the information disorders, media language, ​​and narratives that carry the disinformation generated about Covid-19 at an international level. The analysis focuses on determining its frequency of occurrence, based on the time it takes to be verified and establishing the relationship between the spread of the virus and the prevalence of disinformation on different continents. A sample of 582 fake news items included in the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) database on the novel coronavirus was analyzed. This information was divided into a general sample made up of 511 pieces of disinformation and a specific one on fake news spread through WhatsApp (n=71). The results partially confirm recent studies that reported a greater prevalence of information that reconfigures legitimate content and takes longer to be verified than fully fabricated content. Disinformation in textual form predominates over the production of images and audios. Video content required longer verification times in comparison with the other media formats. Disinformation about Covid-19 includes narratives with a dynamic and changing character as the pandemic expands. Likewise, a parallelism between the geographical evolution of the pandemic and the spread of the infodemic is detected, as well as specific disinformation patterns on WhatsApp, where more audio-based disinformation and a higher percentage of fabricated content is shared, sometimes for criminal purposes. Resumen La Covid-19 no sólo ha desencadenado una pandemia que pone en peligro los sistemas sociales, económicos y sanitarios a nivel global, sino también una infodemia donde proliferan las informaciones falsas, los bulos y las noticias sesgadas. Desde una perspectiva estadístico-descriptiva y utilizando el análisis de contenido, en este estudio se analizan los desórdenes informativos, los lenguajes mediáticos y las narrativas que portan la desinformación generada sobre la Covid-19 a nivel internacional. El objetivo del análisis se centra en determinar las frecuencias de aparición de estas noticias falsas, conocer el tiempo que tardan en ser verificadas y establecer la relación entre la expansión del virus y la prevalencia de la desinformación en los diferentes continentes. Para ello, se analizó una muestra de 582 noticias falsas incluidas en la base de datos sobre el nuevo coronavirus de la International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Estas informaciones se dividieron en una muestra general compuesta por 511 piezas y una específica sobre la desinformación compartida a través de WhatsApp (n=71). Los resultados confirman parcialmente recientes estudios que afirman que las informaciones falsas que reconfiguran contenidos verídicos tienen más prevalencia y tardan más en ser verificadas que los contenidos completamente fabricados. La desinformación en formas textuales predomina frente a la producción de imágenes y audios. Los contenidos en vídeo registran tiempos de verificación muy superiores al resto de producciones. La desinformación sobre la Covid-19 integra narrativas con un carácter dinámico y cambiante a medida que la pandemia se expande. Asimismo, se detecta un paralelismo entre la evolución geográfica de la pandemia y la expansión de la infodemia, así como unos patrones desinformativos específicos en WhatsApp, donde se propagan más audios y un mayor porcentaje de contenido completamente falso, en ocasiones con fines delictivos.

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