Super spreaders

Maybe there is a conspiracy after all (8 minute read)

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When it comes to getting people vaccinated, New Zealand still has some way to go. There’s definitely good news – 87% of eligible people, and 74% of the total population, have had at least one dose. We overtook the USA in September, and have now overtaken Britain and Germany, as well as Australia. We are still some way from matching Portugal, which has vaccinated 89% of its total population, but we are still vaccinating at a consistently high rate.

Soon, though, getting people vaccinated is going to get much harder. At some point, we’ll have motivated the complacent and reached those who have difficulty accessing vaccines, and we’ll be left with a hard core of people who really don’t want to be vaccinated. That’s something I find hard to understand, because even though I’m not in a high-risk group for Covid-19, there are plenty of people I care about who are. I want to do everything I can to reduce the chances of catching Covid-19 and passing it on.

Why, then, do we have a group of people – probably tens of thousands of them, maybe more – who are opposed to getting vaccinated? I don’t mean those who are uncertain or worried, because I find that perfectly understandable, but those who are absolutely determined that they won’t be getting vaccinated. Why risk catching a disease that has killed nearly five million people, and left many more with lingering illness? Why not take a vaccine that has been shown to be effective and with vanishingly small chances of serious side effects? Even if you don’t see the need to get vaccinated for yourself, why wouldn’t you do it for your family and friends?

The answer is that vaccine opponents dispute the basic points I’ve made above. They don’t believe that Covid-19 is a serious disease, they don’t believe that the vaccine is effective and they certainly don’t believe that it is safe.

There is legitimate debate about the exact numbers of people who have died from Covid-19, and about the balance of risks and benefits of vaccination, but the arguments I’m talking about are something different. They are either factually incorrect, or they use evidence taken so far out of context that it is extremely misleading. They’ve crossed a line from being opinion and become something else – dangerous misinformation.

The term “misinformation” usually applies to something that is factually wrong, but not malicious in its intent. All of us probably believe some misinformation. After seeing the film Jurassic Park, I believed that velociraptors were deadly, clever, pack-hunting dinosaurs. Later, I heard that they were actually only the size of a turkey and not too bright, and I believed that too. In fact, neither is strictly correct, something I could have verified if I’d taken the time.

Since I am never likely to encounter a velociraptor, my false beliefs about them were never going to cause a problem. But not all misinformation is equally harmless. Some types of misinformation can be dangerous, to the point that governments make laws about them. One example is making a false claim about a food product or medicine. Although free speech is permitted on most topics, you cannot sell a mix of herbs you gathered from your garden as a cure for cancer unless you have compelling evidence to support that claim.

We are used to these rules, but they didn’t always exist. In New Zealand, attempts were made to regulate such health claims in the early part of last century, when the Quackery Prevention Act was introduced in 1908. Although the act proved difficult to enforce, it did establish the principle that you couldn’t go around making outlandish medical claims about a product you were selling. The harm resulting from false medical claims was well-recognised.

We now have a number of laws regulating what you can and can’t say in relation to products you are selling, not just foods and medicines. You can’t, for example, sell a device under the label “vacuum cleaner” unless it is capable of sucking dirt and dust from carpet. When it comes to selling things, the concept of “free speech” doesn’t override the requirement to be honest. But there’s a difference between someone selling a product by making an unsupported claim, and someone passing on well-intended but factually incorrect information about Covid-19 or its treatment. The latter not illegal.

On one hand, we probably don’t want to become the kind of society where we police people’s words in such a way. But on the other, this kind of misinformation is dangerous, because it can lead to people not following evidence-based public health advice. And, once you start to dig, some online misinformation does have its origin in someone trying to sell something.

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit organisation which researches online misinformation, has found that around 65% of anti-vaccine content on sites like Facebook and Twitter originates from thirteen individuals, and the companies and organisations that they run. Three of those individuals were responsible for nearly half of the anti-vaccine content. But these people aren’t simply passionate activists – most of them are also selling products such as dietary supplements, books and videos with an anti-vaccine theme. They also make money by promoting each other’s products. The anti-vaccine industry itself has revenues around US$36 million, but the profits don’t end there. The 62 million online followers of the individuals spreading vaccine misinformation have earned tech companies like Facebook over a billion dollars.

These individuals are sharing more than just anti-vaccine content. They also claim that masks are dangerous and that Covid-19 either doesn’t exist, or can be treated with unproven or disproven drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (or even hot soups and plenty of water). Some are also sharing content in support of conspiracy theories suggesting that Bill Gates or the Rothschild family are behind the pandemic.

The for-profit nature of so much Covid-19 misinformation begs the question of whether it is all about money. But other groups are spreading misinformation too, such as groups with extremist political and religious views. In their case, the material that they are spreading could be more correctly called “disinformation”. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but disinformation usually refers to false information spread with the intention of doing harm. (Other sources define disinformation as false information that is deliberately spread, as opposed to false information that is spread by someone who believes the falsehoods to be true.)

Blaming a particular group – such as people belonging to a particular ethnicity – is a common response in disease outbreaks. During medieval plague times, Europeans blamed Jewish people. In the Covid-19 pandemic, blame has been directed at people from China and other Asian countries, immigrants, medical workers and, once again, Jewish people. New Zealand hasn’t been immune either. At first, it was an increase in racism directed at Asian New Zealanders. Then, when some of the outbreaks affected more Pasifika people, the racism was directed against them.

But the role of extremist groups has been more complex than just looking for scapegoats. The Rand Corporation (a non-profit research organisation) has investigated the role of extremist groups in generating and spreading false information about Covid-19. Their review found that both Islamist extremists and the far right have been using false information about Covid-19 to get attention and recruit followers during the pandemic. In some cases, the strategy is obvious, such as Islamist extremists celebrating the death toll in Western countries. But other cases have been more convoluted, such as exploiting the grievances of those who’ve lost their jobs or are stuck at home, drawing them into conspiracy theories that fit with an extremist view of the world.

Even more disturbing is the role of groups linked to the Russian and Chinese governments in generating and spreading disinformation. The Rand Corporation has also investigated these links, and found that much of the disinformation that appeared to originate from Russian-linked sources was conspiracy-based. The conspiracy theories that they were spreading weren’t consistent – some suggested that the pandemic was exaggerated, others that it was created as a biological weapon or as a way for Bill Gates or global “elites” to control the population. Others claimed that evidence for the effectiveness of vitamin C and drugs such as hydroxychloroqine was being suppressed. The conspiracy theory disinformation was particularly being spread early in the pandemic, in February and March of 2020.

In their report, Rand noted that the conspiracy theories appeared to have been designed to appeal to people from all parts of the political spectrum in the United States – some would appeal more to those on the left, others to those on the right. They concluded that the intention behind these conspiracy theories was to sow distrust, increase division and cause confusion in the US. Chinese disinformation, on the other hand, was primarily aimed at making the Chinese government look good.

The reports about the origins of online misinformation and disinformation make for depressing reading. It seems clear that a relatively small number of individuals and groups generate much of the online misinformation and disinformation, for their own benefit. In short, there really are conspiracies, just not the ones that your friends and relatives have been spreading on Facebook. The conspiracy theories themselves are a conspiracy. But if it is only a few people coming up with all the false information, how do so many people end up believing it? That is the question I will be considering next week.

Super spreaders: part two

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