Health professions: infox and mistrust of the vaccine obligation
Audio 03:43
Caregivers demonstrate against the vaccine obligation on September 14 in Lyon.
© AFP / JEFF PACHOUD
By: Sophie Malibeaux
7 mins
The vaccination obligation for health professions came into force on Wednesday September 15, 2021 in France.
This measure gave rise to a few flashes in the circles most resistant to vaccination, blown up on social networks.
The movement is in the minority but increasingly radical.
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They sometimes wear the blue blouse, are in the street, in front of the doors of a hospital or the building of the regional health authority. The scene is intended to be massively relayed on social networks. We see them in photos and videos, a piece of paper in hand which they set on fire before throwing it into a blaze. These are caregivers who burn their diplomas, we are told on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc ... Because without a vaccine, since Wednesday, September 15, they are no longer authorized to practice. On the networks, we talk about resignation, suspension, and we invoke "vaccine freedom". In several towns in France we are witnessing sit-ins in front of the hospital or the regional health authority, demonstrations against what is presented as a “health dictatorship”. While hospitals are still under pressure,there are several thousand resignations and staff suspensions.
Misinformation about vaccine side effects
There is in some of them a feeling of fear in the face of vaccination against Covid-19, fears fueled by misinformation on the supposed effects of vaccines.
Numerous viral publications cite US data from
VAERS, the adverse reaction reporting system
, to come to completely unfounded conclusions.
Vaccines are believed to be responsible for the deaths of nearly 14,000 people in the United States alone.
Which is absolutely wrong.
Side effects exist but they are widely amplified on the internet.
Misinterpretations of numbers
In fact, the VAERS reporting system is so open that it cannot be verified. People can report whatever they want, and moreover the database does not claim to provide an explanation for the reported effects. It counts the deaths of people whose death we do not know. The fact is, co-morbidities are over-represented in people who have been vaccinated. Since everywhere, it was decided to vaccinate the most vulnerable as a priority. Therefore, the more the number of vaccinated increases, the more the number of deaths after the vaccine also increases, whether they are elderly or sick populations. There is no link of cause and effect, as a number of patent conspiracyists try to believe. CDC, Center for Disease Prevention and Control publishes
caution regarding the interpretation of these data
, and clearly states that any causal link between the reported events and vaccination remains to be established.
Infox, fuel for click traps
This type of manipulation of figures is notably disseminated on explicitly “anti-tax” sites, but not only.
There are also sites created specifically to make clicks with infoxes as shocking as they are unverified.
We can cite the example of France Media Numérique, which broadcasts news items to the chain, interspersed with advertisements.
The objective is to stir up fear on the networks - in particular by manipulating the figures - to gain an audience and therefore money.
This is how some Internet users find themselves trapped in a narrative disconnected from reality, a fictitious story that generates radical positions.
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