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* Britain to begin vaccine programme this week
* Governments seek to reassure over safety, efficacy
* Many swayed by misinformation, conspiracy theories
By Natalie Thomas
LONDON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - A sizeable minority of people
believe conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and COVID-19
vaccines, some experts have warned, just as countries prepare to
launch mass inoculations to get the pandemic under control.
Britain begins its vaccine programme this week and others
are likely to follow soon, so governments are seeking to
reassure people of vaccines' safety and efficacy in order to get
a critical mass to take them.
In the United States, President-elect Joe Biden said he
would have a coronavirus vaccine publicly to demonstrate its
safety, and referred to people losing faith in the vaccine's
ability to work.
"What we're finding is, in the wake of the pandemic, that
conspiracy beliefs may have gone mainstream, that they're no
longer confined to the fringes," Daniel Freeman, Professor of
Clinical Psychology at Oxford University, told Reuters.
"Around a quarter (of Britain's population) are entertaining
such thoughts. Another quarter are consistently thinking in
terms of conspiracy beliefs, and around one in 10 people seem to
have a very high rate of endorsement of conspiracy beliefs."
The World Health Organization estimates a 65-70% vaccine
coverage rate as necessary to reach population immunity through
vaccination, though the idea of herd immunity assumes a vaccine
prevents transmission, not just the disease itself.
A survey in Britain last month showed that almost two-thirds
of people would get vaccinated for the disease. But many have
expressed unease at the speed at which companies have developed
the drugs to tackle it, and about possible side effects.
Based on published vaccines trial data generated so far this
year by Moderna, the BioNTech-Pfizer partnership and
AstraZeneca, side effects have not been serious or long lasting.
Some also believe unfounded claims spread over the Internet,
including that the pandemic was fabricated by governments to
control people or that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates wanted to
use vaccines to insert trackable microchips into people.
At a recent protest in central London, hundreds of people
shouted slogans against COVID-19 lockdown measures and
vaccinations.
One demonstrator, Michelle, called the pandemic a "hoax".
"It's a cover-up while they reset the whole economy," she
shouted.
'IT MAKES YOU PARANOID'
Leila Hay, a university student in the northern English city
of Hull, said she ended up believing some of what she read
online about vaccines and the pandemic, even though she now says
it has no basis in truth.
"I was looking at a lot of groups, and they were just there
for anyone to go into, they were very public and had a lot of
followers," the 19-year-old recalled.
Some of the theories she once espoused came via QAnon, a
platform that has become a "big tent" conspiracy theory
encompassing misinformation about topics ranging from alien
landings to vaccine safety.
Followers of QAnon say a so-called Great Awakening is coming
to bring salvation.
"It makes you really paranoid because you think everyone's
against you, like the system's against you and the government's
against you," said Hay.
"I was constantly preparing for the absolute worst scenario,
like a new world order was going to happen."
Tom Phillips, editor at fact-checking charity Full Fact,
said rumours and false information during pandemics have been
around for centuries.
"What technology has done is it's enabled them to spread far
more quickly and far more internationally in a way that is
fairly unprecedented," he said.
"Rumour can begin in Italy one day and it can be across
multiple continents a few days later, as we have seen happen
several times."
Oxford University's Freeman said he had been surprised by
how many people were entertaining unfounded ideas.
"I think conspiracy thinking can be pernicious. And, you
know, it's a time we all need to come together and conspiracy
beliefs typically divide."
(Reporting by Natalie Thomas; Writing by Mike Collett-White;
Editing by Janet Lawrence)
