Infodemic Report: Vaccines in May 2023

We discuss the hashtag that would not “die suddenly,” spikes in tweets about vaccines and Canadian politics, and influential false or misleading claims.

The definitions and information about data sourcing can be found in the Appendix. Resources used for graphs are linked when referenced in the text. The findings in this analysis led us to draft an accompanying article: Ghouling, a trend of unspeakable cruelty.

A sharp surge in tweets about Canadian COVID policies

On May 12, there was a steep increase in the number of tweets about COVID-19 policies and politics. The tweets centered on Canadian policies. The graph shows the number of vaccine-related tweets from North America between May 11 and 17, 2023. The counts were sorted by language into Spanish and English. Most of the jump occurs in a 15-minute window.

See image citations and detail here: Vaccine-related tweets from North America from May 11 to 17.

After examining accounts that use hashtags related to Canada and vaccines, it appears that some of them might be fake. However, this doesn’t mean there isn’t real public support for the expressed ideas. The conversation about Canadian policies…