PARIS — A fringe anti-vaccine movement took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to bring conspiracy theories to a much wider audience, propelling dangerous misinformation about life-saving jabs that still endures five years later, experts warn.
Vaccine skepticism was around long before Covid but the pandemic 'served as an accelerant, helping to turn a niche movement into a more powerful force,' according to a 2023 paper in The Lancet journal.
A medical worker takes a sample with a swab from a man, during a coronavirus test, at the Institute of Virology, Vaccines and Sera "Torlak in Belgrade on December 24, 2020. Five years since Covid-19 started upending the world, the virus is still infecting and killing people across the globe — though at far lower levels than during the height of the pandemic. PHOTO BY ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP