Covid-19: ‘Vaccine misinformation a dilemma for young people’ | BBC News

“Misinformation” is creating a “real dilemma” for young people considering whether they should take the Covid-19 vaccine, Northern Ireland’s mental health champion has said.

Prof Siobhán O’Neill said it had left young people questioning “whether the vaccine is safe”.

There should not be that level of “uncertainty”, she added.

She said trust needed to be put in the “experts and the scientists who are making the decisions”.

“We have to look to the scientific consensus and the public health leaders and the doctors and the main organisations, ” she said.

“That’s where we should be focusing for our information.”

Prof O’Neill was appointed mental health champion earlier this month.

She told the Sunday with Steven Rainey programme on BBC Radio Ulster that there exists a “mistrust” of authority.

“Because we have so much misinformation out there, there may be young people who will see this as a real dilemma around whether the vaccine is safe, that for me is a big problem because there should not be that level of uncertainty,” she said.

Northern Ireland remains behind other parts of the United Kingdom for vaccine uptake, with 80% of people having been double vaccinated.

[…]

Source: Covid-19: ‘Vaccine misinformation a dilemma for young people’ | BBC News