One reader wishes governments would come with a strategy to tackle misinformation, and Dave Green says comparisons between Covid and lifestyle-related health conditions are flawed
In response to the letter by David Green (12 January) and the subsequent one from a mother regarding her unvaccinated autistic son (13 January), I feel both have made very understandable points and it is clear that frustration is the enemy here. We have known about the dangers of misinformation for years, and these are now being felt keenly by the huge numbers choosing not to be vaccinated. Emmanuel Macron’s approach of making life more difficult for the unvaccinated (Report, 4 January) makes my heart sink. Surely that will only feed the misinformation beast and validate the screams of “don’t trust the government”.
There is great power in hindsight, of course, but it is apparent that governments had ample warning that misinformation would be a problem for vaccine uptake. It seems that misinformation has been dumped in the “too difficult, with insufficient political gain” box, and we are reaping the consequences.
