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By Now, Nearly All South Africans Have COVID Antibodies

On By ModernMedia
South African flag with COVID theme
Image by Quicknews

The latest COVID seroprevalence survey shows that nearly every adult in South Africa has either been vaccinated or had COVID. For many, it’s both.

The study analysed blood from over 3000 blood donors. It was conducted by the South African National Blood Service, which is responsible for blood donations in eight provinces, and the Western Cape Blood Service.

The researchers estimated that by March 2022, before the fifth wave which appears to have peaked in the last few weeks, 98% of adults had some detectable antibodies, whether from COVID or from vaccination. This means that only 2% had neither been vaccinated nor been infected.

Only 10% had been vaccinated but not infected by COVID.

Read the study

(Note: The study has been published as a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.)

What the survey tested for

Blood samples were collected and tested from 3395 consenting donors from all provinces in mid-March 2022. While blood donors are not precisely representative of the population, the researchers have argued that the study is representative enough.

This is the first time the blood services researchers have been able to look for two types of antibodies.

One test indicates if a sample has antibodies to the nucleocapsid proteins (anti-nucleocapsid antibodies). These antibodies develop if someone is infected, but won’t develop after a person receives a vaccine only (at least not those vaccines currently available in South Africa).

The other test indicates if the sample has antibodies to the spike protein (anti-spike antibodies). These antibodies develop when someone has been infected or has been vaccinated (or both).

Using these two tests together, researchers can, for the first time, evaluate the proportion of the population that has been vaccinated and not infected.

Results

After weighting the results to reflect national demographics, the researchers found that a mere 2% of the population had neither anti-spike nor anti-nucleocapsid antibodies. These are people who have likely never had COVID nor been vaccinated.

10% had only anti-spike antibodies. These are people who were likely vaccinated, but never infected.

The researchers noted that there is “an increasing incidence of reinfection” with the omicron wave.

Blood service survey is the best we have

The blood services have been regularly testing blood samples from donors throughout the pandemic, looking at the presence of anti-nucleocapsid antibodies.

While other surveys might be more representative of the population than the blood donor ones, these have been infrequently published or published long after the survey was conducted. By contrast the blood donor surveys are relatively affordable and quick to publish. Also, as far as we are aware, it is the only survey repeatedly testing the same group of people, so that comparisons across time are possible.

Past blood surveys

The blood services’ survey from samples taken in May 2021 estimated that 47% of the adult population had previously been infected.

The next survey of blood samples was taken in November 2021 after the delta wave. This was just before the omicron wave. The researchers estimated that about 70% of people had been infected.

The latest survey indicates that about 87% of people have been infected.

The previous surveys found that levels of infection differed by province. Now these differences have “largely disappeared as prevalence appears to have saturated”.

Differences across race

There are significant differences in rates of infection when different races are compared.

The November survey showed that about 80% of black donors and 40% of white donors had been infected with COVID.

In the latest survey the proportion of white and Asian donors that only have anti-spike antibodies (indicating vaccination but no infection) was higher than black and coloured donors.

The researchers suggest that “white donors are both unusually likely to avail themselves of vaccination, and they are unusually able to avoid exposure, for instance by working predominantly from home, [and] living in smaller family units.”

Article by By James Stent. Republished from GroundUp under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Source: GroundUp

Categories : COVID UncategorizedTags :

Omicron-derived Immunity Protects Less against Other Variants

On By ModernMedia
Image from Pixabay

In unvaccinated individuals, omicron-derived immunity provides little long-term immunity against other variants, according to new research in the journal Nature.

In experiments using mice and blood samples from omicron-infected, the team found that the omicron variant induces only a weak immune response. In vaccinated individuals, this weak response helped strengthen overall protection against a variety of COVID strains. In contrast, the immune response in unvaccinated individuals failed to confer broad, robust protection against other strains.

“In the unvaccinated population, an infection with omicron might be roughly equivalent to getting one shot of a vaccine,” said Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and co-senior author of the new work. “It confers a little bit of protection against COVID, but it’s not very broad.”

A weaker infection

When it emerged in late 2021, omicron infection was soon observed to cause less severe disease, but whether it conferred broad, long-term immunity was not known.

“When the omicron variant first emerged, a lot of people wondered whether it could essentially act as a vaccine for people who didn’t want to get vaccinated, eliciting a strong and broad-acting immune response,” said Irene Chen, co-first author of the new study and graduate student in Ott’s lab.

To find the answer, the team of researchers first examined the effect of omicron in mice. In the omicron-infected mice, despite the milder symptoms, the immune system still generated the T cells and antibodies typically seen in response to other viruses.

“We demonstrated in this study that the lower pathogenicity of omicron is not because the virus cannot take hold,” said Nadia Roan, PhD, an associate investigator at Gladstone.

This means the difference in symptoms and immune response due to other reasons, such as lower replication or the type of antibodies that are generated.

No cross-variant protection

The researchers took blood samples from mice infected with the ancestral, delta, or omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 and measured the ability of their immune cells and antibodies to recognise five different viral variants – ancestral (WA1), alpha, beta, delta, and omicron.

Blood from uninfected animals was unable to neutralise any of the viruses. Samples from WA1-infected animals could neutralise alpha and, to a lesser degree, the beta and delta virus – but not omicron. Samples from delta-infected mice could neutralise delta, alpha and, to a lesser degree, the omicron and beta virus.

Blood from omicron-infected mice could only neutralise the omicron variant.

The team confirmed these results using blood from ten unvaccinated people who had been infected with omicron, and found their blood was unable to neutralise other variants. When they tested blood from 11 unvaccinated people who had been infected with delta, the samples could neutralise delta and, as had been seen in mice, the other variants to a lesser extent.

When they repeated the experiments with blood from vaccinated people, the results were different: vaccinated individuals with confirmed omicron or delta breakthrough infections all showed the ability to neutralize all the tested variants, conferring higher protection.

“When it comes to other variants that might evolve in the future, we can’t predict exactly what would happen, but based on these results, I’d suspect that unvaccinated people who were infected with omicron will have very little protection,” said Ott. “But on the contrary, vaccinated individuals are likely to be more broadly protected against future variants, especially if they had a breakthrough infection.”

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Scans of Brain Connectivity in Veterans Yield Objective Pain Measures

On By ModernMedia
MRI images of the brain
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels

A brain connectivity study of military veterans discovered three unique brain subtypes potentially indicating high, medium, and low susceptibility to pain and trauma symptoms. This could constitute an objective measurement of pain and trauma susceptibility, possibly leading to personalised treatments and new therapies based on neural connectivity patterns.  

Comorbidity Goes Unexplored

“Chronic pain is a major public health concern, especially among veterans,” said first author Prof Irina Strigo. “Moreover, chronic pain sufferers almost never present with a single disorder but often with multiple co-morbidities, such as trauma, posttraumatic stress, and depression.”

It is already understood that both pain and trauma can affect brain connections, but this had not been studied in the context of comorbid trauma and pain. Much pain and trauma research also relies on subjective measurements, such as questionnaires, rather than objective measurements like brain scans. This study, published in Frontiers in Pain Research, addresses these problems.

Theresearchers studied a group of 57 veterans with both chronic back pain and trauma, who had quite varied symptoms in terms of pain and trauma severity. Functional MRI scans of the veterans’ brains showed the strength of connections between brain regions involved in pain and trauma. The researchers then used a statistical technique to automatically group the veterans based on their brain connection signatures, regardless of their self-reported pain and trauma levels.

Based on the veterans’ brain activity, they were sorted into three groups. Strikingly, these divisions were comparable to the severity of the veterans’ symptoms, and they fell into a low, medium, or high symptom group.

The team hypothesised that the pattern of brain connections found in the low symptom group allowed veterans to avoid some of the emotional fallout from pain and trauma, and also included natural pain reduction capabilities. Conversely, the high symptom group demonstrated brain connection patterns that may have increased their chances of anxiety and catastrophising when experiencing pain.

Interestingly, based on self-reported pain and trauma symptoms, the medium symptom group was largely similar to the low symptom group. However, the medium symptom group showed differences in their brain connectivity signature, which suggested that they were better at focusing on other things when experiencing pain, reducing its impact.

Putting the findings into future practice

“Despite the fact that the majority of subjects within each subgroup had a co-morbid diagnosis of pain and trauma, their brain connections differed,” said Prof Strigo.

“In other words, despite demographic and diagnostic similarities, we found neurobiologically distinct groups with different mechanisms for managing pain and trauma. Neurobiological-based subgroups can provide insights into how these individuals will respond to brain stimulation and psychopharmacological treatments.”

Thus far, it’s not known whether these neural hallmarks represent a vulnerability to trauma and pain or a consequence of these conditions. The technique does however provide an objective and unbiased hallmark of pain and trauma susceptibility or resilience, not reliant on subjective measures such as the surveys. In fact, subjective measurements of pain in this study would not differentiate between the low and medium groups.

Techniques using objective measures like brain connectivity appear more sensitive and could provide a clearer overall picture of someone’s resilience or susceptibility to pain and trauma, thereby guiding personalised treatment and paving the way for new treatments.

Source: Frontiers

Categories : Emergency Medicine Substance Use UncategorizedTags :

Carrying Naloxone in EDs Could Save Lives

On By ModernMedia
Source: Mat Napo on Unsplash

In a study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that after a visit to the ED, many opioid overdose patients carried naloxone, which helps reverse opioid overdoses, which could save their lives in the event of a future overdose.

About 70% of current overdose deaths in the US involve opioids, which means that many of them could be prevented with naloxone. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, blocking the effect of opioids in overdoses and able to save lives when used in time. It is easy to carry and use, and studies have demonstrated that laypeople can administer it safely and effectively to reverse overdoses.

However the people most likely to witness an overdose, including opioid users and their friends and relatives, may not be able to easily obtain naloxone. Strategies are needed to increase uptake, carrying, and administration of naloxone, especially among at-risk individuals in the community who may not be engaged in routine health care or with community naloxone distribution efforts.

Many at-risk individuals find themselves in the emergency departments (ED), either because of an overdose or other complications of substance use. The Perelman School of Medicine’s Anish Agarwal, an assistant professor of emergency medicine, and Margaret Lowenstein, an assistant professor of medicine, recently examined the potential for ED visits as a critical, reachable moment to engage high-risk individuals in overdose prevention. The team reached out to at-risk patients prescribed naloxone in the ED to understand whether they had obtained their naloxone during or after their ED visit, whether they were carrying it, and their plans to carry it in the future.

The survey asked patients about their experiences and perceptions following the ED encounter related to accessing, using, and carrying naloxone. Most of the patients did not carry naloxone prior to their ED, yet over a third reported having a personal history of an overdose requiring naloxone, and more than a quarter had used naloxone to reverse an overdose for another person in the past. Approximately half of the patients said that they were carrying naloxone after their ED visit, and two-thirds planned to continue carrying. And of patients not carrying naloxone prior to their ED visit, 54% reported a plan to continue carrying it in the future.

Source: University of Pennsylvania

Categories : Uncategorized

Man Takes Nearly 90 COVID Jabs for Fake Vaxx Passports

On By ModernMedia
Covid vaccines
Photo by Mat Napo on Unsplash

In Germany, a 60-year-old man allegedly received nearly 90 doses of various COVID vaccines in order to fraudulently sell vaccination cards to people unwilling to be vaccinated themselves, the Guardian reported.

The man, whose name was not released due to German privacy rules, apparently received up to three jabs a day at different vaccination sites in the area of Saxony alone, according to DW.

While the man was not detained, he is being investigated for issuing vaccination cards without authorisation and document forgery.

A vaccination centre staff member in the city of Dresden became suspicious when he recognised the man. When the suspect showed up at a vaccination centre for a COVID shot for the second day in a row, staff members alerted the police, who arrive and arrested him. Several blank vaccination cards were confiscated from him by the police, who initiated criminal proceedings. The man was able to take use the real vaccine batch numbers from the shots he received to fill in the blank cards.

It was not immediately clear what impact receiving at least 87 shots of COVID vaccines, which were from different brands, had on the man’s health.

The case also laid bare the gaps in Germany’s health care system, which does not centrally store medical information or keep digital records.

“A national vaccine register or a coronavirus vaccine register would have shed light on the case immediately,” said Knut Köhler, a spokesperson for the Saxony state medical association.

In recent months, German police have conducted a number of raids in connection with forgery of vaccination passports. Many COVID sceptics refuse to get vaccinated in Germany, but still want to have the coveted vaccine passports that allow much easier access to public life and venues such as restaurants, theatres, swimming pools or workplaces.

Source: The Guardian

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease UncategorizedTags :

New Algorithm Predicts Sudden Cardiac Arrest Risk

On By ModernMedia
Ambulance
Photo by Camilo Jimenez on Unsplash

Cedars-Sinai researchers have developed a clinical algorithm that is the first to be able to distinguish between treatable sudden cardiac arrest and untreatable forms of the condition. The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Clinical Electrophysiology, may help prevent sudden cardiac arrest based on key risk factors identified in this study.

“All sudden cardiac arrest is not the same,” explained Professor Sumeet Chugh, MD, lead author of the study. “Until now, no prior research has distinguished between potentially treatable sudden cardiac arrest versus untreatable forms that cause death in almost all instances.”

In the US, 300 000 people die due to out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest each year. For those affected, 90% will die within 10 minutes of cardiac arrest.

Prevention could have an enormous impact for this largely fatal condition. The biggest challenge, however, lies in distinguishing between those who stand to benefit the most from an implantable cardioverter defibrillator and those who would not.

“Defibrillators are expensive and unnecessary for individuals with the type of sudden cardiac arrest that will not respond to an electrical shock,” said Prof Chugh. “However, for patients with treatable, or ‘shockable,’ forms of the disease, a defibrillator is lifesaving.”

Prof Chugh said that this new research provides a clinical risk assessment algorithm that can better identify patients at highest risk of treatable sudden cardiac arrest—and thus, a better understanding of those patients who would benefit from a defibrillator.

The risk assessment algorithm consists of 13 clinical, electrocardiogram, and echocardiographic variables that could put a patient at higher risk of treatable sudden cardiac arrest.

The risk factors include diabetes, myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, stroke, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, seizure disorders, syncope—a temporary loss of consciousness caused by a fall in blood pressure—and four separate indicators found with an electrocardiogram test, including heart rate.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : Antibiotics UncategorizedTags :

It’s in the Mix: Certain Combinations of Pathogens Resist Antibiotics

On By ModernMedia
Pseudomonas
Scanning Electron Micrograph of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Credit: CDC/Janice Carr

A study has found that much higher doses of antibiotics are needed to eliminate a bacterial infection of the airways when certain other microbes are present. This helps explain why treatment often fails to treat respiratory infections in people with diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

The study’s researchers, whose findings are published in The ISME Journal, say that even a low level of one type of microbe in the airways can have a significant impact on the response of other microbes to antibiotics.

The results highlight the need to consider the interaction between different species of microbe when treating infections with antibiotics – and to adjust dosage accordingly.

“People with chronic infections often have co-infection with several pathogens, but the problem is we don’t take that into account in deciding how much of a particular antibiotic to treat them with. Our results might help explain why, in these people, the antibiotics just don’t work as well as they should,” said Thomas O’Brien, PhD candidate and co-first author.

Chronic bacterial infections such as those in the human airways are very difficult to cure using antibiotics. Although these types of infection are often associated with a single pathogenic species, the infection site is frequently co-colonised by a number of other microbes, most of which are not usually pathogenic in their own right.

Treatment options usually revolve around targeting the pathogen, and take little account of the co-habiting species. However, these treatments often fail to resolve the infection. Until now scientists have had little insight into why this is.

To get their results the team developed a simplified model of the human airways, containing artificial sputum designed to chemically resemble the real thing, packed with bacteria.

The model allowed them to grow a mixture of different microbes, including pathogens, in a stable way for weeks at a time. This is a novel approach, as usually one pathogen will rapidly outgrow the others and spoil the experiment. It enabled the researchers to replicate and study poly-microbial infections in the laboratory.

The three microbes used in the experiment were the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, and the fungus Candida albicans – a combination often found in the airways of cystic fibrosis patients.

The researchers treated this microbial mix with colistin, which kills P. aeruginosa effectively. But when the other pathogens were present alongside P. aeruginosa, the antibiotic didn’t work.

“We were surprised to find that an antibiotic that we know should clear an infection of Pseudomonas effectively just didn’t work in our lab model when other bugs were present,” said Wendy Figueroa-Chavez at the University of Cambridge, joint first author of the paper.

The same effect happened when the microbial mix was treated with fusidic acid – an antibiotic that specifically targets Staphylococcus aureus, and with fluconazole, which specifically targets C. albicans.

The researchers found that significantly higher doses of each antibiotic were needed to kill bacteria when it was part of poly-microbial infection, compared to when no other pathogens were present.

“All three species-specific antibiotics were less effective against their target when three pathogens were present together,” said Professor Martin Welch at the University of Cambridge, senior author of the paper.

Currently, antibiotics are usually only lab tested against the targeted pathogen, to determine the lowest effective dose. But when the same dose is used to treat infection in a person it is often ineffective, and this study helps to explain why. The new model system will enable the effectiveness of potential new antibiotics to be tested against a mixture of microbe species together.

Poly-microbial infections are common in the airways of people with cystic fibrosis. Despite treatment with strong doses of antibiotics, these infections often persist long-term. Chronic infections of the airways in people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) are also often poly-microbial.

Genetically analysing the Pseudomonas in their lab-grown mix, the researchers were able to pinpoint specific mutations that give rise to this antibiotic resistance. The mutations were found to arise more frequently when other pathogens were also present.

Comparison with the genetic code of 800 samples of Pseudomonas from around the world revealed that these mutations have also occurred in human patients who had been infected with Pseudomonas and treated with colistin.

“The problem is that as soon as you use an antibiotic to treat a microbial infection, the microbe will start to evolve resistance to that antibiotic. That’s what has happened since colistin started to be used in the early 1990’s. This is another reminder of the vital need to find new antibiotics to treat human infections,” said Prof Welch.

Source: University of Cambridge

Categories : Implants and Prostheses UncategorizedTags :

Recipients of Bionic Eyes Blindsided by Obsolescence

On By ModernMedia
Source: Daniil Kuzelev on Unsplash

After the manufacturer of a bionic eye ended support, hundreds of recipients of the vision-improving implants have been left without support – “literally in the dark”, as one of them put it.

IEEE Spectrum, which first broke the story, reported that Second Sight discontinued its retinal implants in 2019. The retinal implants serve as the source of artificial vision for the users.

The publication wrote that the firm’s focus is currently on developing a brain implant known as the Orion, which also provides artificial vision. However, it only offers very limited support to the 350 or so who have the now-obsolete Argus II implants.

The system consists of a camera mounted on glasses worn by the user, which transmits video to a video processing unit (VPU), which then encodes the images into arrays of black and white pixels. The VPU then relays the pixel to an electrode array behind the retina, which creates flashes of light corresponding to the white pixels. The technology has had a long and costly road from experiment to product, starting with a lab experiment in the 1990s where stimulation of a single electrode in the retina was discovered to create a visible flash of light perceived by a blind patient. It is hugely expensive, with an estimated cost of $150,000 (R2.25 million) even before the surgery and post-surgery training. 

Implantation surgery typically takes a few hours, followed by training to help users interpret the new optical input from their implants. It is not a replacement for sight; rather it is more like a new sense. Users of the system see fleeting changes of grey which some can then use to assist with basic locomotion. However, the technology is still crude and not all benefit to the same degree. While some can make out the stripes on a pedestrian crossing, others never achieve that level of ability.

The technology also comes with some risk. In the postapproval period, 17% experienced adverse events, though this was an improvement over the 40% in the preapproval period. Since the implant can interfere with MRI scans, some have had to consider removal.

IEEE Spectrum contacted a number of patients, who voiced concern over their future. One patient, Ross Doer, said he was delighted when Second Sight told him in 2020 he was eligible for software upgrades. Yet, he heard troubling rumours. When he called his Second Sight vision-rehab therapist, “She said, ‘Well, funny you should call. We all just got laid off,’ ” he recalled. “She said, ‘By the way, you’re not getting your upgrades.’ ”

“Those of us with this implant are figuratively and literally in the dark,” he said.

Second Sight, when contacted by the publication, said that it had to reduce its workforce because of financial difficulties, and though it attempted to provide “virtual support” was unable to assist with repairs or replacements.
Benjamin Spencer, one of the six patients to receive the new Orion implant, said that it was “amazing” and he was able to see his wife for the first time. But knowing what he does now about Second Sight makes him apprehensive, and plans to have his implant removed at the end of the study period.

Speaking to the BBC, Elizabeth M. Renieris, professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame, in the US, described the development as a cautionary tale.

“This is a prime example of our increasing vulnerability in the face of high-tech, smart and connected devices which are proliferating in the healthcare and biomedical sectors,” she said.

“These are not like off-the-shelf products or services that we can actually own or control. Instead we are dependent on software upgrades, proprietary methods and parts, and the commercial drivers and success or failure of for-profit ventures.”

She added that in future, ethical considerations concerning such technology should include “autonomy, dignity, and accountability”.

Source: IEEE Spectrum

Categories : Obstetrics & Gynaecology Substance Use UncategorizedTags :

Effects of Fathers’ Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Manifests in Offspring

On By ModernMedia
Source: Pixabay

Researchers have discovered that males exposed to alcohol in utero later pass on those effects to their offspring during foetal development, through reduced placental efficiency. The study appears in FASEB Journal.

Dr Michael Golding, an associate professor at Texas A&M University has spent years investigating the father’s role, with regard to drugs and alcohol, in foetal development. Studies have shown that males pass down more than just their genetics, Dr Golding said, but exactly how that process works and the its consequences are still largely unknown.

“When you look at the data from throughout human history, there’s clear evidence that there’s something beyond just genetics being inherited from the male,” Dr Golding said. “So, if that data is solid, we’ve got to start looking more at male behaviour.

“Say you had a parent who was exposed to starvation – they could pass on what you might call a ‘thriftiness,’ where their kids can derive more nutrition from less food,” he said. “That could be a positive if they grow up in a similar environment, or they could grow up in a time when starvation isn’t an issue and they might be more prone to obesity or metabolic syndromes. That kind of data is clearly present in clinical data from humans.”

Epigenetics, which is Dr Golding’s area of study of how things beyond genes, such as behaviour and environment, affect development is called. One of the big questions in the search for answers on how male prenatal behaviour can impact foetal growth has been the way these epigenetic factors manifest.

The team has shown that prenatal exposure to alcohol in males can manifest in the placenta: in mice, offspring of fathers exposed to alcohol have a number of placenta-related difficulties, including increased foetal growth restriction, enlarged placentas, and decreased placental efficiency.

“The placenta supplies nutrients to the growing foetus, so foetal growth restriction can be attributed to a less efficient placenta. This is why placental efficiency is such an important metric; it tells us how many grams of foetus are produced per gram of placenta,” said Thomas, a graduate student at Texas A&M. “With paternal alcohol exposure, placentas become overgrown as they try to compensate for their inefficiency in delivering nutrients to the foetus.”

However,while these increases happened frequently in male offspring, the frequency varied greatly based on the mother; however, the same increases were far less frequent in female offspring. Dr Golding thinks that although information is passed from the father, the mother’s genetics and the offspring’s sex are also involved.

“This is a novel observation because it says that there’s some complexity here,” Dr Golding said. “Yes, men can pass things on to their offspring beyond just genetics, but the mom’s genetics can interpret those epigenetic factors differently, and that ultimately changes the way that the placenta behaves.”

These results don’t draw a clear line in how drinking in human males prior to conception impacts foetal development, but they continue to at least point to it being a question that needs to be explored. 

Dr Golding is hoping that more questions will be asked about male prenatal behaviour so that there’s more data from which to work.

“The thing that I want to ultimately change is this stigma surrounding the development of birth defects,” Dr Golding said. “There’s information coming through in sperm that is going to impact the offspring but is not tied to the genetic code; it’s in your epigenetic code, and this is highly susceptible to environmental exposures, so the birth defects that we see might not be the mother’s fault; they might be the father’s or both, equally.”

Source: Texas A&M University

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

COVID Misinformation Less Prevalent than Believed

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Contrary to what might be expected, misinformation about COVID was less prevalent than for other health topics, researchers found.

Before the COVID pandemic, health misinformation was already widely spread. While all types of information about COVID (including misinformation) were popular between March and May 2020, posts about COVID were more likely to come from governments and academic institutions. Often, these posts were more likely to go viral than posts from sources that routinely spread misinformation.

“At the start of the pandemic, governments and organisations around the world started paying attention to the problem of health misinformation online,” said David Broniatowski, an associate professor at the George Washington University. “But when you compare it to what was going on before the pandemic, you start to see that health misinformation was already widespread. What changed is that, when  COVID-19 hit, governments and social media platforms started paying attention and taking action.”

The researchers collected public posts on Twitter and Facebook at the outset of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, when content about COVID was growing rapidly. They compared those to posts on other health topics from the same time period in 2019, and looked at the credibility of the websites that each post shared. More credible sources included government and academic sources as well as the traditional news media. Sources deemed “not credible” comprised conspiracy-oriented sites and state-sponsored sites known for spreading  propaganda, which were 3.67 times more likely to spread misinformation than credible sites.

“Misinformation has always been present, even at higher proportions before COVID started. Many people knew this, which makes the ensuing misinformation spread during COVID entirely predictable,” said study co-author Mark Dredze, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. “Had we been more proactive in fighting misinformation, we may not have been in an anti-vaccination crisis today.”

“These findings suggest that the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation is a general feature of health information online, not one restricted to COVID-19,” Broniatowski said. “Clearly there is a lot of misinformation about COVID, but attempts to combat it might be better informed by comparison to the broader health misformation ecosystem.”

Source: George Washington University