The COVID-19 pandemic began March 11th of 2020 (CDC 2023) and ended May 11th, 2023 (CDC 2023). Many people felt isolated from their emotional and social support systems during the COVID-19 pandemic due to social distancing. A lot of people felt a sense of loneliness and uncertainty (Horstman & Lewis 2022). In the case of older adults, the number of older adults who felt isolated increased rapidly after the pandemic, from twenty-seven percent to fifty-six percent (Horstman & Lewis 2022). Many began trusting suggestions based on misinformation on social media in during this period of uncertainty and isolation like “just rinse your mouth and nose with saltwater” that were followed in certain parts of Turkish society and later disproven by the World Health Organization (Alkış, Esen & Gürbüzer 2023). The uncertainty of the time led many citizens worldwide to be vulnerable to the spread of misinformation via social media. The segment of COVID-19 misinformation on social media among all posts varied from 0.2% (413/ 212,846) to 28.8% (194/673) among twenty-two studies on social media posts in Spring of 2020 (Gabarron, Oyeyemi & Wynn 2021)
During the pandemic there was a surge in COVID-19 conspiracy theories which could possibly change public opinion and affect the spread of valid information (Ferreira 2022). When people began asking questions about the disease to which they could not find clear answers conspiracies ensued (Dmitry, Abraham & Nadeja 2022). When looking at twitter I found lots of misinformation surrounding side effects, which led me to question what was the effect of the CDC report on myocarditis side effects of vaccine resistance among Twitter users? The CDC (Center for Disease Control) published a report on June 23rd, 2021 announcing that the vaccine increased the risk for myocarditis, especially in young men (Gargano et al. 2021). Myocarditis is heart muscle inflammation caused by a viral infection which withers the heart by limiting the heart’s ability to get blood (Mayo Clinic Staff 2022). The inflammation can increase the possibility of irregular heartbeat and in more severe cases increase the risk of heart failure and sudden death (Mayo Clinic Staff 2022). Since social media became such a hotspot for misinformation, I decided to look at twitter to analyze the impact of the announcement of this report on twitter users expressing covid vaccine resistance. Vaccine resistance is an objection towards vaccines, and twitter seemed to be the social media platform of choice for those expressing covid vaccine resistance.
