Social media influencers are spreading wild rumours about Covid-19 vaccines and periods

‘It will be an uphill battle to quell the rumours that have already spread...

‘Over the last few days, social media accounts from those opposed to vaccines have begun to promote the outlandish idea that simply being around people who have been vaccinated causes menstrual issues and even miscarriage. The first, as far as I can tell, was Kim Alberts, a self-described “health and medical freedom” enthusiast who runs an Instagram account with more than 64,000 followers. Albert’s previous posts read like a greatest hits list of health misinformation and conspiracy theories: She warns of the dangers of chemtrails and extols the virtues of coffee enemas. In recent posts, Albert has shared anecdotes supposedly submitted by thousands of her followers who have “caught” cycle changes from vaccinated people.’

Read here (Mother Jones, Apr 20, 2021)

Everything you need to know about “vaccine passports”

‘Countries with digital vaccine certificates in the works include Israel, China, Japan, United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, the UK, Estonia, Australia, France, and Singapore. Other projects are more international in scope. The EU Commission hopes to launch a Digital Green Certificate that will allow travel between EU countries by summer. Airlines and various international consortia are in the process of developing passes that would work across borders and facilitate international travel. (These include the IATA travel pass, the CommonPass, American Airlines’ VeriFly, the ICC AOKpass, and IBM’s Digital Health Pass.) 

‘Elizabeth Renieris, a technology and human rights fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and former policy counsel for Evernym, points out that governing bodies like the EU Commission have never rolled out technology close to this before—no interoperable digital passports, ID cards, or driver’s licenses. “How can there be such an accelerated rollout for something that has never been done before for any other purpose?” Renieris asks. “To attempt this for the first time, and to do it at such high stakes with such potentially severe risks to very fundamental freedoms, just feels like a very rash move.” 

Read here (Mother Jones, Apr 2, 2021)

Without official vaccine guidance, pregnant people are left to do their own research

‘The lack of clear guidance around pregnancy has ripple effects. Despite abundant evidence that the vaccines are safe for lactating parents and their babies, last month the Chicago Tribune reported that a new mom who was breastfeeding was denied the COVID-19 vaccine by her county’s health department. Officials said they decided not to allow pregnant or lactating women to receive the vaccine, citing a lack of data.

‘Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told me he was appalled by the mixed messaging around vaccines in pregnancy, which he said leaves patients “reading the tea leaves.” The government “has not made a good faith effort to take down the anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation,” he said. “So by telling a pregnant woman to do her own research online means you’re basically telling her not to get vaccinated.”

Read here (Mother Jones, Mar 4, 2021)

The pandemic has unmasked America’s deepest inequities: Covid’s disparate racial impacts, by the numbers

‘Covid-19 doesn’t discriminate, but the havoc wrought by the virus—the deaths, economic devastation, and intergenerational trauma—has disproportionately affected Black, Latino, and Native American communities. The Trump administration’s feckless response didn’t help, yet even proactive steps have reinforced preexisting inequities: Stay-at-home orders protected people with the privilege to work remotely while frontline workers, disproportionately Black and Latino, took on greater risk of exposure. People of color have also experienced more unemployment and financial insecurity. As Mary Bassett, director of Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, explains, none of this is caused by the virus itself: “It’s because of the social consequences of race in our society, which has been reinforced by decades, centuries of bad practices and policies.”

Read here (Mother Jones, Feb 12, 2021)