For example, a fake-news video called “Plandemic,” claiming that the new coronavirus was hype and that a vaccine would kill millions, was viewed more than 7 million times on YouTube before it was taken down. Demonstrators from Germany to the U.S. have been spreading bizarre fantasies that Bill Gates, one of the world’s great philanthropists, conspired with “Big Pharma” to engineer SARS-CoV-2 so he could establish a global health dictatorship. He’ll police this with microchips implanted under your skin. There’s no end to this bilge available on the Internet.
None of this is funny. Conspiracy theories have already led to anti-vaxxers refusing to get shots against measles, thus compromising the already-achieved herd immunity and causing new outbreaks of this deadly disease. The same could happen when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available. The threshold for herd immunity against Covid-19 is estimated at between 55% and 82% of a given population. But only about 50% of Americans say they’d get vaccinated.
So the time for corona statecraft and education is now, before the vaccine arrives. Internationally, countries are likely to be most open to multilateral solutions before it’s clear which nation will first develop a vaccine. Domestically, the debate about who has priority has the best chance of staying scientific before people are clamoring for jabs. Above all, educating people to distinguish facts from fake news is effective only before they become exposed to, and infected by, conspiracy theories. We have to win the struggle against disinformation this year, or lose the fight against Covid-19 in 2021.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.