---
title: Misinformation Fallout
tags: live-v0.1, misinformation

permalink: https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/misinfo_fallout
---

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# Fallout from COVID-19 misinformation

Belief in COVID-19 misinformation has been shown to have a wide range of negative consequences for individuals and society overall:
* People who are misled often fail to engage in health protective behaviour.
* Misinformation has been directly linked to increased mortality rates.
* People who are misinformed may be less willing to vaccinate.
* Misinformation and conspiracy theories have even been linked to violence.

## Reduced health protective behavior

A study by [Allington, Duffy, Wessely, Dhavan, & Rubin, (2020)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/healthprotective-behaviour-social-media-usage-and-conspiracy-belief-during-the-covid19-public-health-emergency/A0DC2C5E27936FF4D5246BD3AE8C9163) found a strong negative relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and COVID-19 health-protective behaviours. That is, the more people endorsed conspiracy theories the less likely they were to look after themselves and others.

So instead of spending as little time as possible outside the home, staying at least 2 meters apart from other people, and washing hands for more than 20 seconds, believers in conspiracy theories tended to disregard those precautions. This is potentially problematic because these are behaviours known to reduce the risk of catching and spreading COVID 19 ([CDC, 2020](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/handwashing.html)).

Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that areas with greater exposure to cable news shows that downplay the threat of COVID-19 (e.g., Fox News) experienced a greater number of cases and deaths ([Bursztyn, Rao, Roth, & Yanagizawa-Drott, 2020](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3580487)), and exhibit more non-compliance with stay-at-home orders ([Simonov, Sacher, Dube, & Biswas, 2020](https://https://www.nber.org/papers/w27237 )).

## Reduced intent to vaccinate

Higher levels of COVID-19 conspiratorial thinking are also associated with being less willing to take diagnostic or antibody tests and less willingness to be vaccinated ([Freeman et al., 2020a](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/coronavirus-conspiracy-beliefs-mistrust-and-compliance-with-government-guidelines-in-england/9D6401B1E58F146C738971C197407461)). Unfortunately, conspiratorial thinking is far from rare, with approximately 25% of people in England showing either a consistent pattern of conspiratorial thinking endorsement or a very high level of endorsement. ([Freeman et al., 2020a](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/coronavirus-conspiracy-beliefs-mistrust-and-compliance-with-government-guidelines-in-england/9D6401B1E58F146C738971C197407461)).

[Freeman et al., (2020b)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/covid19-vaccine-hesitancy-in-the-uk-the-oxford-coronavirus-explanations-attitudes-and-narratives-survey-oceans-ii/C30FDB5C3D87123F28E351FDAAD5351A) found that 86% of vaccine hesitancy was predicted by beliefs about the collective importance, efficacy, side-effects, and speed of development of a COVID-19 vaccine. This demonstrates that belief has a large impact as to whether individuals decide to get vaccinated. They found that while 72% of people in England were willing to be vaccinated, 17% were unsure, and 12% strongly hesitant.

**Check out our [dedicated page](https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/publicattitudes) for the latest on public attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine.**

## Violence

[Jolly and Paterson (2020)](https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/bjso.12394) found that belief in 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theories was associated with state anger, which in turn associated with a greater justification of real-life and hypothetical violence toward 5G mobile technology. This conspiracy theory has no basis in fact and is the result of people linking two new things that arrived at the same time---the pandemic and the rollout of the 5G network---are somehow connected to each other.

**Check out our [dedicated page](https://c19vax.scibeh.org/pages/misinfo_conspiracytheories) about COVID-19 conspiracy theories and how to deal with them.**

## Conclusion

Debunking of COVID-related misinformation is important because it may keep people from harming themselves and others by violating health guidelines. Debunking misinformation may also reduce demand for ineffective treatments and the propensity to share misinformation online ([MacFarlane et al. 2020](https://dx.doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/q3mkd)).

**Detailed recommendations for best-practice debunking can be found in the [_Debunking Handbook 2020_](https://sks.to/db2020).**

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_{Page contributors: Briony Swire-Thompson, Stephan Lewandowsky}

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