One morning in early December, Al Baker, the managing editor at Logically, a fact-checking startup in the United Kingdom, met with his team on Zoom. It was the first week of Britain’s COVID-19-vaccination drive, and Baker was a little on edge. Earlier that day, in Coventry, a ninety-year-old grandmother named Margaret Keenan became the first person in the U.K. to get the jab outside of a trial. “I’m wondering if we’re going to find people claiming that she doesn’t exist,” Baker told the group. Joe Ondrak, a senior researcher, said he would keep an eye out. (“I’m expecting some of that,” he added.) It didn’t take long. By the afternoon, Baker’s team had unearthed a Facebook post claiming, incorrectly, that the real Keenan had died in 2008, and that the woman on the news was a “crisis actor.” “Curious why Sky News cut away within seconds of Margaret taking the very first Covid vaccine? THIS IS WHY!” it read. “Wakey, Wakey, people!”
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Source: The Fight Against Vaccine Misinformation | The New Yorker