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Person Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine
There’s nothing like expedited vaccines to bring about new fears and old myths that just won't die. As COVID-19 vaccines roll out around the nation and distribution picks up pace in Minny, the spread of misinformation is ramping up too.
Two University of Minnesota professors co-authored The COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook on vaccination attitudes and misinformation, in part, focusing on a new method referred to as prebunking. “People are warned ahead of time that they may be misled and then the facts are shared," says Emily Vraga, Ph.D., who holds the Don and Carole Larson Associate Professorship in the U of M’s journalism and mass communication school. "In doing so, you are helping people become resilient to future manipulation attempts.”
But for those who already believe some of these myths or misconceptions, we turn to debunking. “Succeeding at this is difficult, as people already hold a belief that false information is true,” Dr. Vraga says. Successful debunking follows this pattern: “Share the facts, warn about and repeat the falsehood one time, explain why it is false, and repeat the facts.”
We tapped the U of M professors and co-authors for common vaccine misconceptions they gleaned from their research. Welcome to your prebunking and debunking guide to the COVID-19 vaccines.
Myth: The Vaccine Could Give You COVID-19
It's an enduring one, heard time and time again from flu shots to early childhood vaccinations: the vaccine will give me the virus. “None of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in development or in use in the United States contain the live virus that causes COVID-19,” says Panayiota Kendeou, Ph.D., director of graduate studies and professor at the U of M’s department of educational psychology. The COVID vaccine is an mRNA-based shot, which some are also wary of as it’s a newer (emphasis on “er”) vaccine tech. “While vaccines based on mRNA are relatively new, they have been studied for decades. Scientists are very confident in their safety,” Dr. Vraga says.
This long-held misconception is rooted in two factors, Dr. Vraga says: that vaccines take time to be effective and that they do not provide 100 percent protection. “Developing full protection takes two shots spread out across several weeks,” she continues. “There will be cases of people being diagnosed or even getting COVID-19 after their first shot or even shortly after their second.” This is not evidence that the vaccine can give you the virus, but simply that the vaccines take time to provide the promised protection.
The vaccines currently in circulation are highly effective in warding off COVID, just not 100 percent. The Pfizer vaccine offers 95 percent protection and the Moderna vaccine offers 94.1 percent. “Even after enough time has passed for the antibodies to be produced, some people who are vaccinated may still get COVID-19, although likely will have a less severe case,” Dr. Vraga says. “This is why vaccines are most effective when everyone is vaccinated—reducing the risk that someone around you can give you the disease as well as the risk that you will contract it.”
The correlation of cases and vaccination may be more pronounced with the COVID vaccine because of the rollout. “Many countries (including the U.S.) are prioritizing the high-risk groups first, especially the elderly,” Dr. Vraga says. “This means that—just by chance alone—there will be some completely unrelated deaths to individuals in these groups after getting a vaccine. This is not due to the vaccine, but misinformation can suggest a causal link.”
Myth: You Don’t Need the Vaccine if You’ve had COVID
While this may ring true for something like the chickenpox, it doesn't apply to viruses, like the flu, that need recurring reinforcement. Still, some people may think: I’ve already had and recovered from COVID-19, so there’s no point in getting vaccinated now. “This is incorrect due to the severe health risks associated with COVID-19 and the fact that reinfection with COVID-19 is possible,” Dr. Kendeou says.
This misconception goes hand-in-hand with the belief in herd immunity. Last spring, we saw some countries opt for a herd immunity approach, where they let the virus take its course and allow their communities to acquire protection via infection. “There is a myth that naturally-acquired immunity from diseases is better or stronger than vaccine-acquired immunity,” Dr. Kendeou says. “Also, not true.”
The Need for Speed
The rapid inception, production, testing, and rollout of the COVID vaccines has some people questioning how much we really know about them—and how much we’ll find out down the road.
“It is common for new vaccines to be met with initial hesitancy, which later resolves as they become more established,” Dr. Kendeou says. But “transparent and effective risk communication can increase vaccine confidence.”
Some may wonder how widely a vaccine could be tested in such a short window. But when it comes to COVID, the transparency and size of the safety trials has been (all together now): unprecedented. “Tens of thousands of people have taken the vaccine and are being closely monitored for any symptoms or side effects,” Dr. Vraga says. “It has been nearly a year since some of the earliest participants in the trials received their doses and [they] continue to be monitored to this day.”
Overall, the easiest way to nip these fears and myths in the bud is through open risk communication, Dr. Kendeou says, noting that the vaccines have “transient but discomforting side effects” like fever and muscle pain.
Though we don’t know the long-term ramifications of the vaccine, the wait-and-see approach isn’t a chance we should take with a virus as contagious and deadly as COVID. “We have many good reasons to expect [the vaccines] will continue to be safe and we have monitoring in place to detect any concerns immediately [and] address them,” Dr. Vraga says.
“The same is not true for COVID-19 itself,” she continues. “We are learning more about COVID-19 each day, and it not only carries the risk of death but also long-term effects on people’s health that we do not know about. Vaccines are the best way to mitigate the risk of immediate death and long-term suffering that COVID-19 can cause.”
