With Covid-19 virus still making its round throughout the globe, there is still chaos and confusion regarding how to deal and avoid the virus making a meet and greet with you, people are still going through several videos or articles which claim to reduce the chances of the virus. A video titled “Canadian Doctors Speak Out,” which claims to offer the top reasons not to fear COVID-19, has been shared thousands of times on social media. But public health experts said it includes misleading claims about variants of the disease and immunity, and recommends treatments that have not been proven effective against the virus. The nearly 12-minute video, which has circulated since March 8, 2021, features commentary from doctors in British Columbia and Ontario. They are licensed medical professionals but not coronavirus specialists, and claim to offer Canadians tips on how to protect their health “that do not include getting a shot with a vaccine.”
An Ontario anti-mask activist also made false claims in an Instagram video about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines available in Canada and misleadingly refers to potential adverse vaccine reactions recorded in the United States. Medical experts said the shots do not alter the DNA of recipients or make people infectious, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it has not detected safety issues with the vaccines. “All the reasons not to take an experimental mRNA injection never before used on humans,” reads the caption of a February 21, 2021 video that has been viewed more than 195,000 times on Instagram as of March 5, 2021.
It was further promoted on Twitter by Randy Hillier, an independent Member of the Provincial Parliament in Ontario. He formed the “End the Lockdowns Caucus” and regularly posts on social media against mask mandates and other public health measures taken to curb the spread of the coronavirus. YouTube removed the video for violating its terms of service. Twitter also added a notice to some of the YouTube links to the video Several COVID-19 vaccines are being administered or are in trials around the world. In December, the Pfizer-BioNTech shot using mRNA technology was authorized in Canada, followed by Moderna’s mRNA vaccine. Both are 94-95 percent effective. Although the COVID-19 vaccines are the first using the cutting-edge messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology to be approved and distributed globally, research on using mRNA technology for vaccines started in the early 1990s and included promising tests on animals. “mRNA vaccines have elicited potent immunity against infectious disease targets in animal models of influenza virus, Zika virus, rabies virus and others, especially in recent years,” said an article published on January 12, 2018 on Nature’s website.
Therefore, it is advised not to blindly believe any fact you come across and check it once or twice again before believing it.
