Taiwanese are SOON to get COVID-19 shots, so medical personnel, government officials and the public should consider the finer points of vaccination information and scheduling. Accurate facts can be found, but they are frequently published next to false rumors, even in news outlets viewed as trustworthy.
EU news media have been reporting on adverse reactions and side effects experienced by medical personnel who received the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
German magazine Der Spiegel ran the headline: “The vaccine that nobody wants: Fears of AstraZeneca could have dangerous consequences.” The headline is misleading because it emphasizes some people’s fears, when a closer look shows them to be unfounded.
Among the three most commonly used COVID-19 vaccines, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been administered to the largest number of people in the greatest number of countries, which underscores the amplification effect of myths, misinformation, complaints and resistance by a small number of medical personnel.
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has compiled data from the WHO on the frequency of side effects following injections of the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
The most frequent side effect was pain at the injection site, followed by fatigue, headache and muscle soreness. The least frequent side effects included physiological and clinical symptoms, such as chills, joint pain and fevers of up to 38°C.
These symptoms have been reported at much lower frequencies for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine than the other two vaccines — in the language of science, the differences are statistically significant.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has two other advantages: It is the cheapest of the three, and it is easier to transport and store (between 2°C and 8°C in regular refrigerators, compared with minus-25°C to minus-15°C in special freezers).
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be quickly shipped to international medical institutions using transportation equipment available in many countries. These advantages explain in great part the preference for the vaccine and its broader use.
People need to be wary when seeing headlines like the one in the German news magazine. The number of reported side effects for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is higher because more people have been vaccinated with it, but its rate of side effects is much lower than the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
The complaints of the earliest vaccinated medical personnel attracted a lot of media attention and dominated the news cycle for several days, which generated a disproportionately negative impression followed by excessive resistance.
The incorrect amplification of these negative impressions could detract from the CECC’s vaccination plan, which is based on a thorough review of the available evidence.
The media, as well as the public health units of the central and local governments, have the responsibility of clarifying and explaining information about COVID-19 vaccination. That includes accurately citing sources and explaining the difference between concepts, such as numbers and rates.
The public deserves to have access to reports on the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, but news and public health sources must go out of their way to provide the latest data and analyses.
Huang Chung-yuan is a professor in Chang Gung University’s Graduate Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering.
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