Why we believe COVID-19 bullshit

Worldwide, COVID-19 vaccine misinformation has become the new pandemic. Representation pic/Getty Images

I'm definitely not taking that COVID vaccine," my friend swore. "No way my wife and I are going to be part of a genocide."

He believed COVID-19 was the weapon in a diabolical plan for mind control and world domination by a cabal of powerful elite billionaires, led by Bill Gates, George Soros, Democrats and various Jews.

If you're laughing, stop. An October 2020 survey found that 61% of Indians are sceptical of the COVID-19 vaccine. Worldwide, vaccine misinformation has become the new pandemic. Many believe the virus is part of a global conspiracy to enslave and control people. Corona and vaccine sceptics neither need evidence nor are influenced by it. Science that undermines their beliefs is merely further proof of the very conspiracies they warn about.

Facebook claims to have expunged 7 million posts with dangerous COVID-19 misinformation early last year and labelled 98 million pieces as questionable, though 95% of all COVID-19 lies are estimated to still be intact online.

It's Facebook, though, so don't expect integrity - their numbers also show that about $1 billion of their revenues came from paid anti-vaccine posts and COVID-19 misinformation.

You know me. I like the why question. Why do so many people unquestioningly believe that vaccines are bad and part of a plan to kill everyone off? I mean, look around - people are getting vaccinated. Where's the genocide?

Turns out genocide has long been the preferred explanation for new pandemics. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed 10 to 20 times more people than COVID-19, was called an act of German bioterrorism for eliminating their enemies.

Shrill religion and sensational journalism do the heavy lifting. When the smallpox vaccine was introduced in 1796, clergymen protested saying smallpox was God's punishment, how dare we prevent it? Mediocre journalists, sensing raw meat in this outrage, splashed fact-free headlines. With enough repetition, fiction began to be taken as fact.

Pandemics don't come with a user manual; they take a while to be understood. While scientists toil to figure out what it is and what to do about it, the coronavirus is evolving. Meanwhile, you are alone at home, masked and locked down, thirsty for reliable information.

Anti-vaxxers, who have been around for centuries, are standing to fill that information gap and tell you what's what.

Trump says the Chinese created it in a lab (they didn't). Homoeopaths and yogis say they've got a cure all ready (they don't). A self-styled ‘doctor' called Biswaroop Roy Chowdhury says it's the same as the seasonal flu and needs no attention (utterly false).

The founder of UK's COVID-19 Truth Tour last year, featuring coronavirus sceptics dead set against lockdowns, masks and vaccines, said the coronavirus had been created to make the rich richer and subjugate the rest of us under a dictatorial world government.

"Bill Gates is just one of them," he revealed. Gates, we are told, wants to inject a microchip into every human being. "They control the world's banking system, most governments and the World Health Organization. They've decided there are too many of us so this vaccine will implement technology that makes us controllable."

Let me introduce you to the gastroenterologist who started the measles vaccine scare, which led to the COVID-19 vaccine scare, Edward Wakefield. In a study of 12 autistic children he published in The Lancet medical journal in 1998, Wakefield claimed to have identified a disease called autistic enterocolitis, and openly wondered if it might be caused by the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine. At a press conference later, he claimed, falsely, that he had found evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

For a while, diligent science journalists combated his false claims using real data but then the anti-vaxxers began to amplify Wakefield's falsehoods, with help from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Non-science writers happily headlined unfounded claims, turning them into the new truth through repetition.

However, one journalist, Brian Deer, refused to bite. His investigations eventually revealed that Wakefield had received £55,000 to unearth evidence against vaccines. He had also applied for a patent for a rival to the MMR vaccine and was fully aware that vaccines worked perfectly. More - he had been paid £465,653 by trial lawyers looking for proof that MMR damaged children. Even the autistic enterocolitis Wakefield claimed to have discovered had been fabricated with made-up data. He had hoped to later announce a cure for the disease he had ‘created' himself.

The Lancet took down Wakefield's paper and he was disbarred, exiled to ignominy.

By then, however, his false claims had been widely amplified, re-circulated, posted online and turned millions against vaccination. The anti-vaxx movement is not going away anytime soon and newborn children will pay the price.

The evil that men do does indeed live on after them. My dear friend in Delhi will never immunise himself against any disease. He'd rather be infected by the rumour.

Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.