What is the World Doing about COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance?

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Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the WHO declared vaccination hesitancy one of the Top 10 threats to global health in 2019.

A vaccine will help prevent new infections, and more than that, it will help businesses and schools in hard-hit countries get back to normal. Vast amounts of money have been invested in finding a vaccine and media reports update us regularly on the progress of over 200 candidate vaccines under evaluation.This blog shares research on vaccine acceptance worldwide.

Source: What is the World Doing about COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance?

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    COVID-19 Contact Tracing Online Course

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    The COVID-19 crisis has created an unprecedented need for contact tracing across the country, requiring thousands of people to learn key skills quickly. The job qualifications for contact tracing positions differ throughout the country and the world, with some new positions open to individuals with a high school diploma or equivalent.

    In this introductory course, students will learn about the science of SARS-CoV-2 , including the infectious period, the clinical presentation of COVID-19, and the evidence for how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from person-to-person and why contact tracing can be such an effective public health intervention. Students will learn about how contact tracing is done, including how to build rapport with cases, identify their contacts, and support both cases and their contacts to stop transmission in their communities.

    The course will also cover several important ethical considerations around contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine. Finally, the course will identify some of the most common barriers to contact tracing efforts — along with strategies to overcome them.

    Source: COVID-19 Contact Tracing Online Course

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      COVID-19 Health Literacy Project

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      This project creates and translates accessible COVID-19 information into different languages to help all patients know when, and how, to seek care. The materials are created in collaboration with Harvard Health Publishing.

      All of the materials are reviewed and vetted by physicians and medical school faculty members at the Harvard hospitals. These materials are created in collaboration with Harvard Health Publishing. The materials are freely available for download and distribution without copyright restrictions. The project currently supports 35 languages.

      Source: COVID-19 Health Literacy Project

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        COVID-19–Related Infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis

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        The authors of this article followed and examined COVID-19–related rumors, stigma, and conspiracy theories circulating on online platforms, including fact-checking agency websites, Facebook, Twitter, and online newspapers, and their impacts on public health.

        Information was extracted between December 31, 2019 and April 5, 2020, and descriptively analyzed. They performed a content analysis of the news articles to compare and contrast data collected from other sources, and identified 2,311 reports of rumors, stigma, and conspiracy theories in 25 languages from 87 countries. Claims were related to illness, transmission and mortality (24%), control measures (21%), treatment and cure (19%), cause of disease including the origin (15%), violence (1%), and miscellaneous (20%).

        Of the 2,276 reports for which text ratings were available, 1,856 claims were false (82%).

        Misinformation fueled by rumors, stigma, and conspiracy theories can have potentially serious implications on the individual and community if prioritized over evidence-based guidelines. Health agencies must track misinformation associated with the COVID-19 in real time, and engage local communities and government stakeholders to debunk misinformation.

        Source: COVID-19–Related Infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis

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          How to Report Misinformation Online

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          As the world responds to the  COVID-19 pandemic, we all face the challenge of an overabundance of information related to the virus. Some of this information may be false and potentially harmful.

          Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed, making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice  from trusted sources, such as  their local health authority or WHO. However, everyone can help to stop the spread. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you can report it to the hosting social media platform.

          This page offers links to various social media platforms’ sites for reporting inappropriate content.

          Source: How to Report Misinformation Online

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            Immunizing the Public against Misinformation

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            Proliferating misinformation — even when the content is, in a best-case scenario, harmless — can have serious and even social and lethal health ramifications in the context of a global pandemic. In some countries, rumours about impending food scarcity prompted people to stockpile supplies early on in the epidemic and caused actual shortages.

            This article is an interview with Tim Nguyen whose team manages the Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN), which is leading WHO work on managing infodemics.

            Source: Immunizing the Public against Misinformation

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              Teaching Senior Citizens to Spot Misinformation

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              This article explains that COVID-19 has made the topic of misinformation timely and urgent. Discerning reliable health information is especially a matter of life or death for older people who are more vulnerable to the virus, and showcases projects created to ameliorate the situation.

              Tips to spot misinformation and avoid sharing it include evaluating whether news is from a known media outlet; noting the publication date, who wrote the content, and whether the author is reputable; checking if a website has a .gov, .edu, .org or .com suffix; and if a website is selling a product.

              Source: Teaching Senior Citizens to Spot Misinformation

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                Advice on the Use of Masks for Children in the Community in the Context of COVID-19

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                This document provides guidance to decision makers, public and child health professionals to inform policy on the use of masks for children in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It does not address the use of masks for adults working with children or parents/guardians or the use of masks for children in health-care settings. This interim guidance will be revised and updated as new evidence emerges.

                This guidance provides specific considerations for the use of non-medical masks, also known as fabric masks, by children as a means for source control in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The document is an annex to the WHO’s Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-191 in which further details on fabric masks can be found. This annex also advises the use of medical masks for children under certain conditions. For the purposes of this guidance, children are defined as anyone below the age of 18 years.

                Source: Advice on the Use of Masks for Children in the Community in the Context of COVID-19

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                  WHO Advice for Home-Based Care of COVID-19

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                  This page includes guidance for the public on home-based care practices for those who have tested positive for COVID-19 or those who have come in contact with others who have tested positive. It was originally published in March 2020 and then updated in August 2020.  This is the latest version.

                  The updates include:

                  • Considerations regarding the IPC requirements for the household to be suitable for caring for COVID-19 patients in the home
                  • Clinical monitoring and treatment of COVID-19 patients at home
                  • Waste management in the home setting in the context of COVID-19
                  • An appendix on the effective implementation of home-care policies

                  Source: WHO Advice for Home-Based Care of COVID-19

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                    Timeline: WHO’s COVID-19 Response

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                    This timeline tells the story of WHO’s response to COVID-19, starting from the end of December 2019 to the present day.

                    The timeline breaks information down into the following categories, and within these, by regions of the world:

                    • All actions
                    • Information
                    • Science
                    • Leadership
                    • Advice
                    • Response
                    • Resourcing

                    Source: Timeline: WHO’s COVID-19 Response

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