In the last two posts of this series I talked about the influence groups of social media such as Twitter and the false information of vaccines that go around. I also contributed the second post into some data on how vaccines do really help people to avoid harmful diseases.
The image seen above of the positive affect on vaccines and how it overall helped individuals. Social media echo chambers are when certain users only see information that echo’s their own beliefs. This drives them to further participate in the anti-vaccination movement. Online users will select some key pieces of information and decide to ignore the argument for vaccinations. A study called the Moving the Needle found out that two out of five parents under the age of eighteen have false information on vaccinations in which they surveyed 2,600 parents.
In Europe, a psychologist at the University of Erfurt in Germany says that around half of the people surveyed in ten European countries were found to get medical information of social media and the internet. However the online information seen is found to have a greater impact. Dr. Betsch had said there is some phycological research that influence on perceptions and thoughts are not always conscious, having a subtle effect.
What is Herd Immunity and why does this matter?
Herd immunity is when describes how a population is protected for a disease stopping the germ that is responsible for the infection. For example, the bacteria pneumococcus can cause blood poisoning or meningitis. In many cases, it lives in people’s throat, harmless. However if they spread to someone that is vulnerable to this, such as a toddler, this can cause a disease. By being vaccinated the toddler cannot pass the infection to other people. However for herd immunity to work, a very large portion of people must be vaccinated.
In order for Herd Immunity to work, it would depend of the type of germ and how contagious the germ is. The more contagious this germ is, the more people must be vaccinated. Measles are very contagious and in order to reach herd immunity around 90%-95% of the population must be vaccinated. A disease like polio which is less contagious would need around 85% of the population to be vaccinated. Although this percentage is lower, this is still a very high amount of vaccinated people, taking into account that some cannot be vaccinated because of their immune system. However herd immunity only works with diseases that are contagious and a disease like tetanus comes directly from the soil. Because of this anyone can be exposed.