Most Floridians see COVID vaccines as safe. But many also believe conspiracy theories

With COVID on the rise and new vaccines arriving in pharmacies and doctor’s offices, the vast majority of Floridians believe the shots are safe, help prevent the spread of infections, and reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.

Those assessments are validated by the overwhelming majority of public health authorities — and, a statewide poll shows, seven in 10 Floridians.

But the University of South Florida/Florida Atlantic University public opinion survey that probed what people know — or think they know — revealed sizable numbers of Florida residents believe inaccurate assertions about the vaccines.

And that’s a problem, said Stephen Neely, an associate professor at USF’s School of Public Affairs.

“The misinformation unnecessarily costs lives. The CDC has said that. The World Health Organization has said that. And the data confirm that,” Neely said. “It’s disheartening, but it’s the reality that we’re facing right now. … Overall, people perceive vaccines to be generally safe and efficacious. But even among those who do, there’s still pretty widespread belief in some things that are not true.”

Among the findings of the USF/FAU survey, conducted in August:

• The biggest factor associated with beliefs in misinformation was political affiliation, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats and independents to agree with a range of false assertions about vaccines. “Unfortunately our best efforts to communicate the truth about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines have not been able to break through these political barriers,” Neely said.
• One in four Floridians incorrectly believe the vaccine causes alterations in DNA. Almost as many believe it can cause infertility.
• A smaller, but notable, number of Floridians believe one of the most far-out conspiracy theories, that the vaccines contain microchips.

Politics and health

An enormous political gulf has emerged around COVID. And that’s true as well about the vaccines, especially after the initial rush of excitement in late 2020 and early 2021. Vaccinations have become more politically polarized and some people objected to being told what to do and chafed at recommendations from public health authorities.

Despite the belief in various falsehoods — and outspoken vaccine skepticism among some prominent officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis — 66% of Floridians surveyed in August said they were very or somewhat confident in COVID “guidance provided by the CDC and other public health officials.”

And 69% said they were very or somewhat likely to get regular COVID-19 booster shots if recommended by public health officials — which is precisely what the Food and Drug Administration did on Monday and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did on Tuesday.

The CDC recommended that everyone 6 months and older get the latest vaccine, which the agency said “remains the best protection” against COVID-related hospitalization and death and reduces the chances of long COVID.

“I think we all wish COVID would be fully in the rearview mirror, but the reality is, it’s still here with us, it’s still circulating, and it’s still making some people very sick. But the good news is, we have more tools to protect ourselves. We just have to use those tools,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, said on the PBS NewsHour.

Florida has the highest COVID hospitalization rate in the country. Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations were 2,536 during the week ending Sept. 2, the most recent date published by the CDC, up from 951 the week ending July 1.

On Wednesday, DeSantis and the surgeon general he appointed, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, responded to the FDA and CDC by recommending people under age 65 not get the new booster. Cohen decried DeSantis and Ladapo’s move. “Public health experts are in broad agreement about these facts, and efforts to undercut vaccine uptake are unfounded and dangerous,” she said in a statement to news organizations.

That leaves Floridians to decide what advice to follow. Among Floridians surveyed last month, 42% said they were very likely to follow vaccine recommendations “by public health officials.” Other findings: somewhat likely, 27%; somewhat unlikely, 17%, and very unlikely, 15%.

There were significant differences based on political affiliation. Among Democrats, 84% said they were or somewhat likely to get the shots, compared to 69% of independents and 53% of Republicans.

The share who don’t plan to get vaccinated is still too high, said Kenneth Goodman, founder and director of the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

“It means more people sick, and it kills more people,” he said. Goodman, who was not involved with the survey, said the views it uncovered showed many people believe false statements about the vaccines would translate into a “higher body count.”

Misinformation

Researchers surveyed Floridians in an attempt to understand the impact of public perceptions of vaccines, given the volume of information floating around “particularly in online/digital spaces.”

Neely’s work in public opinion research has delved into COVID since the early days of the pandemic, including a research about people who have defriended others on Facebook because of their views.

To gauge public beliefs, people were given multiple statements and asked whether they believed the claims. The statements were classified by the CDC as “true” or “false,” but respondents weren’t told what was true or false.

There was widespread agreement with three true statements:

• COVID-19 vaccines are safe — 71%.
• Vaccines help prevent the spread of COVID-19 — 69%.
• Vaccines reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19 — 77%.

Statements classified as “false” by the CDC and percentage of Floridians who believe they are true:

• Getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine — 51%.
• COVID-19 vaccines are causing new variants of the virus to emerge — 42%.
• COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA — 26%.
• COVID-19 vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus — 49%.
• Vaccines can cause you to get sick with COVID-19 — 42%.
• Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will cause you to temporarily test positive for the virus — 42%.

Party affiliation

On almost every question, Republicans are far more skeptical of vaccines than Democrats, significantly more likely to believe in statements that the CDC classifies as false, and less likely to believe statements health authorities say are true.

“Attitudes toward the pandemic remain starkly divided along political lines,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.

For example, Democrats were significantly more willing to receive ongoing vaccine boosters than Republicans (84% to 53%).

And Republicans reported lower levels of trust in COVID guidance from public health officials (47% to 88%) than Democrats.

“Politics shapes perception,” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University. “And it’s pretty clear in these numbers that Republican perspective on the world leads you down one path and a Democratic perspective leads you down another.”

Zelden wasn’t involved in the survey.

Statements classified as “false” by the CDC and the percentage of Floridians who believe they are true showed the divide:

• Getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine — Democrats, 36%; independents, 53%; Republicans, 67%.
• COVID-19 vaccines are causing new variants of the virus to emerge — Democrats, 31%; independents, 43%; Republicans, 48%.
• COVID-19 vaccines alter your DNA — Democrats, 16%; independents, 28%; Republicans, 32%.
• COVID-19 vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus — Democrats, 36%; independents, 48%; Republicans, 57%.
• Vaccines can cause you to get sick with COVID-19 — Democrats, 31%; independents, 42%; Republicans, 50%.
• Getting a COVID-19 vaccine will cause you to temporarily test positive for the virus — Democrats, 36%; independents, 36%; Republicans, 48%.

Development of some vaccines was accelerated by Operation Warp Speed under former President Donald Trump, and political leaders like DeSantis were initially enthusiastic promoters of vaccination.

But as the pandemic was moving into its second year, many Republicans became much more skeptical. DeSantis ultimately emerged as a vaccine skeptic, and he replaced the Florida surgeon general with Ladapo, a vaccine skeptic.

One effect of the partisan divide: Areas in which President Joe Biden performed better than former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election generally had higher vaccination rates. In July, Yale University researchers who studied Florida and Ohio reported in JAMA Internal Medicine that  “excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before.”

In March, Ladapo said that “at this point in the pandemic, I’m not sure anyone should be taking them (vaccines).”

Appearing with DeSantis at a campaign-style event in Sept. 7, Ladapo said there was “no evidence” supporting the new vaccine and asserted there “are a lot of red flags.”

Zelden said the vaccine views reflect an overall shift among many Republicans concerning “attitudes toward government telling you what to do and what not to do, toward expertise. A lot of the culture war positions that the Republicans have challenge existing expertise, because they don’t like what they’re being told. So they question the validity of the underlying science.”

Neely said the survey shows there is no indication that the polarization is easing.

“A lot of us had hoped for a time we could kind of coalesce around a shared scientific understanding,” he said. “Instead, this form of political beliefs around COVID have sort of become a kind of partisan political identity.”

Age, gender

One demographic category stood out: 25- to 44-year-old Floridians.

They had higher beliefs that false information was true — sometimes significantly higher — than other age groups on six of the eight statements considered false by the CDC. In most cases, the belief in the false statements was about 10 percentage points higher among 25- to 44-year-olds than the population as a whole.

Neely said he doesn’t have a good answer for the greater embrace of false information among people aged 25-44. Because it is a large and diverse age group — 25-year-olds are very different from 44-year-olds, Neely said — “it’s a little harder to parse out the meaning.”

He said there may be a lower perceived threat from COVID in that age group “and therefore less urgency to research and talk to your doctor.”

And the oldest group — age 65 and up — had much lower belief in the false claims.

“This is the group that is most at risk for severe COVID illness, the group that is most likely to have spoken to their doctor about a vaccine. They are the least likely to believe in these misinformation themes,” Neel said.

Men and women had almost exactly the same assessments about most of the false statements.

Two exceptions: Men were more likely than women (57% to 45%) to believe getting sick with COVID-19 builds better immunity than getting a vaccine, and women were more likely than men to believe (53% to 45%) that the vaccines contain a “live strain” of the virus.

Microchips

Even before the first vaccines were administered to the public in December 2020, one conspiracy theory was circulating on the internet: that the shots were being used to inject tiny devices allowing people to be tracked.

Many people regarded the notion as a joke and mocked the idea. But it became fairly widespread; a July 2021 YouGov/Economist poll found 20% of Americans said it was definitely or probably true that the U.S. government was using the vaccines to microchip the population. Though 65% said that was definitely or probably false, many public public health organizations and news media outlets debunked the idea.

And it is believed by enough people that it’s refuted by the CDC website: “FACT: COVID-19 vaccines do not contain microchips. Vaccines are developed to fight against disease and are not administered to track your movement.”

Yet the August USF/FAU poll found 14% of Floridians said the claim that the vaccines contain microchips was definitely or possibly true.

“That conspiracy theory has proven more troublesome than we expected at first,” Neely said. “We’re sadly confident that this is the correct number that believe in that particular misinformation theme.”

That’s one area in the survey in which there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between Democrats (12%) and Republicans (13%).

And it was the only false statement included in the survey in which independents had a slightly higher belief (16%) than Republicans. In all other areas, Republicans had a higher percentage of people accepting the misinformation.

There were variations by age, with people aged 25-44 more likely to say the microchip statement was true and people 65 and older far less likely to say it was true.

The microchip belief, broken down by age, was: 18-24 — 17%; 25-44 — 23%; 45-64 — 12%, and 65 and older — 5%.

To Goodman, Neely and Zelden said the overall share of people buying the microchip theory is in line with Americans’ acceptance of all sorts of conspiracy theories.

“This is your basic conspiracy theory,” Zelden said. “That 14% is about the percentage that believe in most conspiracy theories.”

Goodman said “that 14% were out there for other things too: that the moon landing was staged, the world was created 4,000 years ago, and bitcoins are great investment.”

Neely said the result is consistent with previous surveys, and the result is an accurate assessment of Floridians beliefs in the microchip theory — and not a case of people parking the poll by claiming a belief in the microchip theory.

He said it is possible that some people don’t understand what is meant by microchips and so aren’t equating it with the conspiracy theory that microchips are being implanted in people via vaccines so they can be tracked.

Infertility

The survey found 24% of Floridians believe vaccines can cause infertility. The CDC doesn’t state this is false, Neely said, but that there is no evidence in support.

Concerns about fertility have gotten attention since the early days of the vaccine, perhaps most prominently by entertainer Nicki Manaj, who in September 2021 said she wasn’t vaccinated and told her 22.6 million followers on the social media platform then known as Twitter that her cousin’s friend had become impotent after getting the shot.

A wide range of medical experts debunked the assertion. Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, an associate professor of urology at the University of Miami, wrote at the time that the truth was the opposite of what Minaj said, that the virus that causes COVID — not the vaccine — poses a risk for both erectile dysfunction and male infertility.

Many Floridians believe it does cause infertility.

The survey reported 33% of people aged 25-44 — who are in peak childbearing years — believe the vaccines cause infertility, 9 percentage points higher than the overall population.

Other big believers in the infertility statement: 29% of Republicans and 24% of independents.

Democrats (15%) and people 65 and older (12%) were less likely to believe it.

As with many statements on the survey, there was little difference between men (22%) and women (25%.)

Most say effective

Most Floridians rated the vaccines as effective.

On preventing infection, 71% said they were very or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 86%; independents, 72%; Republicans, 56%.

On preventing hospitalizations, 79% said they were very or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 92%; independents, 81%; Republicans, 67%.

On preventing death from COVID-19, 78% said they were effective or somewhat effective. Among Democrats, 91%; independents, 80%; Republicans, 67%.

And most Floridians — 66% — expressed confidence in the COVID guidance provided by the CDC and other public health officials.

Floridians were very confident (31%), somewhat confident (35%), not very confident (18%) and not at all confident (16%).

Very and somewhat confident ranged from 88% among Democrats to 47% among Republicans. As with almost all questions on the survey, independents were in between, at 65%.

Goodman said he’d like to see much more information into people’s COVID and vaccine beliefs, and the behavior it encourages.

“This is no longer politics, this is anthropology. How do you get ordinary people to believe in preposterous things,” Goodman said. “Why are some of the people willing not just to believe, but to embrace the preposterous?”

The fine print

Researchers from the University of South Florida and Florida Atlantic University, sponsored by the Florida Center for Cybersecurity, surveyed 600 Florida adults. The poll was conducted Aug. 10 to 21 using an online survey through market research firm Prodege MR.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Because subgroups (such as Democrats and Republicans or men and women) are smaller than in the overall poll, the margins of error are higher for those groups.

Anthony Man can be reached at [email protected] and can be found @browardpolitics on Facebook, Threads.net and Post.news.