Vaccine Misinformation

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 24 November 2020.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 2:14, 24 November 2020

I thank you for that, First Minister. Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they had developed a vaccine for COVID-19 and that it was showing promising results, but almost immediately there were messages circulating on social media channels suggesting that the vaccine would be harmful, without any substantiated evidence. I understand that it's natural that people will have concerns and questions about the safety of new and existing vaccines, but I do believe that the misinformation that we've seen on social media platforms has the potential to do a significant amount of harm. First Minister, what discussions has the Welsh Government had with social media channels regarding vaccine misinformation and how we can tackle that? And what steps are being taken to encourage people to access information in a reliable format?