OTTAWA—A year ago this week, protest signs for the so-called “Freedom Convoy” started popping up around downtown Ottawa, hoisted into the air on hockey sticks and plastered against the sides of trucks:
“God’s given immunity works best.”
“They’ve been lying so stop complying.”
“We are not lab rats.”
They were the product of threads of misinformation planted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which falsely claimed that governments and media were lying about the severity of the public health crisis and the safety of vaccines meant to protect Canadians from the worst of its wrath.
Now, a Canadian organization is behind an unprecedented use of modelling that has illustrated the disturbing cost of those narratives.
According to a report released Thursday from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), researchers found that between March and November 2021, misinformation contributed to vaccine hesitancy for an estimated 2.35 million people in Canada.
The Cost of COVID-19 misinformation
Between March and November 2021, misinformation contributed to vaccine hesitancy for an estimated 2.35 million Canadians, according to modelling by the Council of Canadian Academies. If those who believed COVID-19 was a hoax or exaggerated had not delayed or refused vaccination, by the end of November 2021, there could have been...
198,000
fewer COVID-19 cases
13,000
fewer hospitalizations
$299 million
saved in hospital costs
SOURCE: COUNCIL OF CANADIAN ACADEMIES
STAR GRAPHIC
Based on the modelling, if those who believed the pandemic was a hoax or exaggerated had not delayed or refused vaccination, then by the end of that time frame, there could have been:
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- about 198,000 fewer COVID-19 cases;
- an estimated 13,000 fewer hospitalizations;
- approximately 2,800 fewer deaths;
- nearly $300 million saved in hospital costs.
“It does seem that misinformation has become a defining issue of our age,” said Alex Himelfarb, a former clerk of the Privy Council and chair of the expert panel that produced the report, entitled “Fault Lines.”
The panel was tasked by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to answer the question: “What are the socioeconomic impacts of science and health misinformation on the public and public policy in Canada?”
The CCA convened 13 experts to create the report, drawing on people in fields such as public policy, science communication and economics. It defined misinformation as false information that is “inadvertently shared,” and disinformation as something that is “deliberately created or shared.”
The panel used what’s known as an “agent-based” model in collaboration with a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to “simulate” the behaviour of Canadians in 2021.
The model looked at whether people believed that COVID-19 was a hoax or thought that perceived vaccine harms had been “covered up,” according to the best available polling data.
Running on the evidence-based assumption that those beliefs would contribute to vaccine hesitancy, the panel examined various hypothetical scenarios about what might have happened if those groups, and the entire Canadian population at large, were vaccinated as soon as shots became available to them. Using a baseline model of real data regarding vaccination levels, case counts, deaths, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions, researchers were able to estimate the impact of misinformation.
The published estimates are conservative; they only account for a nine-month period during the pandemic, and don’t include other factors such as the impact of long COVID and outcomes associated with delaying surgeries and other procedures.
“Agent-based models like this have been used for other purposes, but this is a breakthrough. It’s an original contribution,” Himelfarb told reporters.
It’s the sort of data NDP MP Charlie Angus has been waiting for.
“These numbers are really concerning. They show us that misinformation has real-life consequences,” Angus told the Star. “I mean, more people died according to disinformation than (people who) die in car accidents every year in Canada.”
The Ontario MP has taken part in parliamentary proceedings in Canada and the United Kingdom on the threats posed by digital disinformation, and has spoken out about how unprepared Canada was to face the explosion of inaccurate information that surfaced during the pandemic and the ensuing “freedom” movement.
He said that while elected officials in Canada presented a unified front at the onset of the pandemic, some began to “pander to the fear” wrought by the crisis.
“It not only amplified the disinformation but it embedded it in political discourse in this country, and it made all sorts of disinformation a legitimate part of what has become very, very toxic politics in our country,” Angus said. “That’s going to be … very hard to walk back.”
Indeed, the CCA report cited data that has shown “politician” to be one of the most “untrustworthy” professions in the country, and discussed how beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories are highest among those who do not trust the government and mainstream media.
Raisa Patel is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:
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