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Oct 17, 2020 1 min, 17 secs

Misinformation on social media, particularly that a flu shot will increase the risk of contracting the coronavirus or cause you to test positive for Covid-19 -- it won't -- is undermining the public health message.

One false claim circulating on Facebook and Instagram said a flu shot would raise the probability of Covid-19 infection by 36 percent.

Another on Instagram said Sanofi's flu vaccine Fluzone was 2.4 times more deadly than Covid-19.

A national study from the University of Michigan found that one in three parents planned to skip the flu vaccine for their children this year, with mothers and fathers pointing to misinformation, including the belief that it is not effective, as a reason.

Jeanine Guidry, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies health messaging on social media, said: "There is so much misinformation related to Covid and I really believe that that spills over" to the flu.

While the effectiveness of the flu shot can vary depending on whether the strain of flu circulating in communities matches the strain in the vaccine, the CDC said it prevents millions of illnesses each year

Flu vaccine expert Danuta Skowronski, of the British Columbia Center for Disease Control, said: "We saw no association in children nor in adults between the receipt of influenza vaccine and coronavirus risk."

- Social media response -

While social media platforms host misinformation, they also take actions to spread reliable guidance about vaccines

Methods developed to encourage user engagement on social media "could be used more judiciously to guide people to credible and evidence-based information," Dunn said

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