Social Listening Report Number 87: 17 July 2023

Title

Social Listening Report Number 87: 17 July 2023

Type of Report

Social Listening Report

Date

July 17, 2023

Key Trends In the Report

The national state of disaster was still lifted. Misinformation continued to fuel hesitancy. Many South Africans believed or were unsure about at least one of eight false claims regarding COVID-19 vaccines. Pregnant women, in particular, showed reluctance due to fears of side effects and family pressure. Children were found to be the primary source of household COVID-19 infections, with 70% of transmissions starting with them. People who spent more time online struggled to distinguish between real and fake news.

Misinformation by Period

False claims about vaccine safety, effectiveness, and side effects were widespread. Many people believed that vaccines could cause infertility, alter DNA, or were part of a government conspiracy. Some misinformation linked health issues to political agendas. Claims suggested that vaccine campaigns were being used to influence elections or that health data was being manipulated for political gain. Anti-vaccine groups used the measles and mumps outbreaks to push narratives that vaccines were ineffective or dangerous.The cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal sparked viral misinformation.

Suggested Recommendations

The report recommended a Cholera Social media toolkit and a Cholera emergency page. The report recommended tailoring health messages based on people’s attitudes and beliefs. A six-step framework was proposed to help health communicators understand and respond to misinformation more effectively. Pregnant women, online users, and people with comorbidities were identified as particularly vulnerable to misinformation.

Lockdown Level

The National State of Disaster lifted

Cumulative Cases

4 126 981

Cumulative Deaths

103 963

Cumulative Hospitalisations

For the period of 2023 in South Africa, there is no publicly released daily, weekly or even monthly continuing series of hospital admissions for COVID-19 through the DATCOV system after 31 December 2022. The NICD report states, "These daily COVID-19 hospitalisation reports have been discontinued from 31 December 2022". This implies that for 2023, hospitalisation data from that system are incomplete or not publicly reported in the same format.

Cumulative Recoveries

4 023 018

Number of vaccines administered for that week

2 639

Total number of vaccines administered to date

39400493

Geographical Region

South Africa, Malawi, Sudan, Mozambique. In total there were 13 countries in Africa affected by Cholera beginning of the year in 2023

Curators of the report

Charity Bhengu

HST

NICD

SA Red Cross

National Health Hotline and UFS

Stakeholders

National Health Hotline: Reports from the national call centre

Org: NDOH Covid-19 WhatsApp system

WHO Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA)

UNICEF: digital analysis of content on Google, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and digital news

SA Red Cross: Network of over 2,000 community volunteers reporting misinformation and concerns.

Real 411 Media Monitoring Africa: a mis- and disinformation reporting and debunking initiative

COVID Comms: a network of communications specialists that produces information on the pandemic.

DOH Free State & KZN: Provincial Departments of Health

Health Systems Trust, Community Constituency Front (CCF),

Health Enabled

Centre for Communication Impact, Centre for Analytics & Behavioural Change

Medical Research Council, National Institute for Communicable Diseases,

SA Vaccination and Immunisation Centre, HSRC, DG Murray Trust, Right to Care

Universities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Free State, Wits, Stellenbosch, Sefako Makgatho