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News on COVID-19
Megan Peña considers herself and her family “very pro-vaccine.” She said she and her husband got their COVID-19 shots when they were eligible, and when her daughter Laila turned 12 in July and became eligible for the Pfizer vaccine, she assumed Laila would be similarly excited for immunization. “She just was like, ‘No, I don’t […]
By Madeline FoxThe Biden administration is privately ramping up outreach to major media outlets in hopes of tamping down a spate of alarming news reports that threaten to slow its vaccination campaign. The White House began holding a series of briefings Monday and into Tuesday with all the major TV networks — including Fox News — as […]
By Christopher CadelagoA recent post on Sputnik V’s Twitter account boasts that Chile has become the 69th country to register the Russian vaccine. “Sputnik V is now authorized in 69 countries with a total population of over 3.7 billion people,” reads the text. This upbeat tone is in stark contrast with recent reports from a number of […]
By Mariam KiparoidzeThe Freedom’s Phoenix, a local news site in Phoenix, and The Atlanta Business Journal, a news site in Atlanta, both published the same article about coronavirus vaccines in March. The author was Joseph Mercola, who researchers and regulators have said is a top spreader of misleading Covid-19 information. In the article, Dr. Mercola inaccurately likened […]
By Sheera Frenkel and Tiffany HsuAs the drummer of the Indonesian punk band Superman Is Dead, I Gede Ari Astina, better known as Jerinx, always relished making headlines for rebellious acts. His most recent, and most controversial: becoming one of Indonesia’s leading anti-vaxxers. “Those who don’t believe that this covid is just a business scheme may still believe that America […]
By Peter Guest, Febriana Firdaus and Tammy DananThe most visible vaccine-skeptical public figures, the likes of Tucker Carlson or Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), understand this. They don’t need to spread demonstrable falsehoods. They can simply focus night after night on outlier cases of severe side effects. Or they can selectively present results of scientific studies or government communications in ways that seem […]
By Gilad EdelmanWith less than half the United States population fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and as the delta variant sweeps the nation, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory that called misinformation an urgent threat to public health. The advisory said efforts by social media companies to combat misinformation are “too little, too late and still don’t […]
By Anjana SusarlaDespite assurances from Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Australia was at “the front of the queue” for COVID-19 vaccines, Australia’s rate of vaccination ranks last in the OECD. Nevertheless, Australia is still ahead of scores of other nations when it comes to vaccination rates, with many countries in the developing world unlikely to be able […]
By Sarah Joseph and Gregory DoreJoe Biden might want to consider re-backpedaling after his accusation that social media companies [Facebook] are “killing people” by spreading vaccine conspiracies and bunk. A new study suggests that Facebook’s news consumers are inordinately unwilling to get the covid-19 vaccine. Facebook fired back at President Biden’s comment earlier this month with a from Carnegie Mellon […]
By Whitney KimballYesterday, the US Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to announce that its frontline medical workers will be required to get vaccinated against Covid-19, while New York City and California also announced plans for vaccine mandates. California’s requirement, like the VA’s, applies to health workers; New York’s will apply to around 350,000 city workers, including police […]
By First DraftIn May of 2020, the Navajo Nation reported one of the highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rates in the United States. But even the dire official numbers didn’t tell the full story. The Native American Journalists Association’s Indigenous Investigative Collective brought together three newsrooms to launch a public records campaign to dig into how a mix […]