Antivaxxers trying to use football player’s collapse
The vaccination campaign to get the pandemic under control is a complicated mission and antivaxxers is one of the main obstacles. When Danish football player Christian Eriksen collapsed during a match against Finland, antivaxxers argued the collapse shows the vaccines are dangerous. One problem with their theory is that Eriksen had not even been vaccinated.
“He didn’t have COVID and wasn’t vaccinated either,” Giuseppe Marotta, director at Italian football club Inter Milan, where Eriksen plays club football, told media.
Danish team doctor Morten Boesen has confirmed Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch. He was brought to a nearby hospital where he was staying for further treatment.
The rumours that Eriksen’s collapse was because of the vaccine started spreading online just shortly after the incident. Fake information said that Eriksen had been vaccinated on May 31.
Also after Eriksen’s Italian football club had informed that he had not been vaccinated, the rumours continued with antivaxxers saying the football club’s information was just a cover up.
A recent survey among European fact checkers made by the European Media Observatory showed disinformation around COVID-19 vaccines could risk undermining governments’ vaccination plans and more generally public preparedness for vaccines distribution.”
When asked about specific disinformation they have found, the fact checkers mentioned:
– vaccines haven’t been tested enough (they have been approved too fast)
– disinformation about people dying after the vaccine and because of it
– disinformation about people having severe consequences after the vaccine (e.g. sterility, Bell’s palsy etc.)
– “mRNA vaccines can modify the human DNA
Other major disinformation narratives about the vaccine and the vaccination campaign detected are grouped around the following:
- ineffectiveness of the vaccines;
- conspiracy theories linked to Bill Gates and others on their intention to depopulate the planet, or injecting 5G-microchips and nanorobots as well as vaccines as a mass surveillance tool
- cancer and infertility as direct effects of vaccines
- politicians pretending they are getting vaccinated, but in reality they are not.
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