A new report estimates that misinformation surrounding COVID-19 contributed to more than 2,800 deaths in Canada and at least $300 million in hospital visits and intensive care unit stays, over a nine-month period in 2021.
A committee of experts from the Council of Canadian Academies recalls that misinformation has led some people to not believe that COVID-19 was real, or that it was exaggerated, which has encouraged resistance to vaccination.
The study estimated that between March and November 2021, the belief that COVID-19 was “a hoax or an exaggeration” caused 2.35 million Canadians to delay or refuse their vaccination.
However, if these people had been vaccinated during this period, we would have known in Canada a decrease of approximately 198,000 cases, 13,000 hospitalizations and 2,800 deaths due to COVID-19, estimated the researchers.
Alex Himelfarb, chairman of the expert committee that conducted the study, also points out that the real impacts of this misinformation are very likely much greater than the report demonstrates, since the researchers only examined nine months of this pandemic, which has now been going on for almost three years in Canada.
The study also did not include “estimated indirect costs,” such as postponed elective surgeries and treatment for “long COVID” cases, Himelfarb adds.
“It’s a threat,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview. Vulnerable communities always pay the highest price for what goes wrong in our society. »
Himelfarb says the mathematical models took into account the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine and the eligibility of Canadians for vaccination during this period.
It was Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada that asked the Council of Canadian Academies “to study the socio-economic consequences of science and health misinformation and disinformation on the public and public policy in Canada”, says the organization in a press release.
The Council of Canadian Academies presents itself as a not-for-profit organization “that conducts independent, evidence-based assessments, through expert panels, to guide the development of public policy in Canada”.
The Council was founded by three independent organizations: the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
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