General vaccine trends in India 1

1. Common Misinformation:

• The hashtag #VaccineVirodhi run by Rajiv Dixit is seen to do rounds again on social media. The same can be seen in the comments section of various vaccine posts especially in the Marathi media.

• The same vaccine hesitancy message has a further link to Google Drive with Logo, e-book and pamphlet among others.

• Conspiracy theorists like Dr. Bishwaroop Roy Choudhury continues to spread misinformation on the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and that one of the ingredients of COVID-19 vaccine is cow blood. The same can be accessed here and here respectively.

- Revelant dashboards have been customized on CrowdTangle to draw better insights in the coming weeks.

2. Over performing/common trends in the last week:

• CrowdTangle Insights from the previous week shows a peak in interest in vaccinations in India. Posts related to ‘first doses of the Covishield vaccine’ against COVID-19 has overperformed by 259.65 times while ‘Dry run for the vaccinations’ posts overperformed by 207 times.

• Other trending news posts include: News on Covishield leaving from Serum Insititute overperformed by 114 times, #AdarPoonawalla trended and overperformed by 90 times while Bhopal volunteer’s alleged death during clinical trials trended by 64 times in the past week.
• Other trending news posts include: News on Covishield leaving from Serum Insititute overperformed by 114 times, #AdarPoonawalla trended and overperformed by 90 times while Bhopal volunteer’s alleged death during clinical trials trended by 64 times in the past week.

3. On ground Surveys on Vaccine Hesitancy:

However, according to Local Circles, community social media platform’s survey, citizens are not in a rush to inoculate themselves against COVID-19.

• Of the 18,000 respondents, 69 percent say they will not rush to vaccinate themselves against the pandemic even if it is made available by February 2021
• In October, Local Circles found 61 percent of the respondents surveyed were not keen to go for early vaccination, while it was 59 per cent in November and rose to 69 percent in December
  
• Some of the key reasons for the hesitancy are limited information about side-effects, efficacy levels (vaccine has not passed the regular duration of testing), competition among vaccine companies and a growing belief in parts of the population that COVID cannot affect them because of their high immunity levels
  
• 39 per cent believed that India's daily caseload is reducing “because of people's high immunity or because the virus has had its run and is now going away
  
• Another independent survey indicates 55% of healthcare professionals are hesitant to take the vaccine; 64% prefer to do an antibody test before vaccination (proposed strategy to defer vaccine now and take at a later stage)
  
• On the other hand, a World Economic Forum/Ipsos global survey (18,526 adults from 15 countries) found the number of people willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine has dropped to 73% (from 77% in August)
  
• COVID-19 vaccination intent exceeds the 15-country average in India (87%), China (85%), South Korea (83%), and Brazil (81%), Australia (79%), the United Kingdom (79%), Mexico (78%), and Canada (76%)