COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Research Articles

Assessing the Interplay Between Public Attention and Government Responsiveness With Digital Trace Data: Navigating Leadership and Followership in China’s COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

China’s digital campaign to “vaccinate all who can be vaccinated,” officially launched in December 2020, carries global implications. Grounded in the agenda-setting framework to reveal how the responses of different groups are shaped and their agendas interact, this study analyzed two years of Sina Weibo (the largest Chinese microblogging service) and Baidu (the leading search engine in China) search index data to investigate the interrelationships among different groups’ issue foci and the effects of sentiment, rationality, and moral motivation in the agenda-setting process. Large-scale computational analyses were conducted to determine the extent to which the Chinese government followed the public’s issue preferences and identify which segment of the public had a stronger ability to set the agenda. The results indicated that as the central government transitioned from leading to following the public, regional governments had a greater impact on the public agenda compared to the central government or media. The government, public, and media differed in their usage of sentiment and moral motivation on social media during the vaccination campaign, and this varied depending on the campaign’s stage. Notably, all stakeholders emphasized individual-centered values over community-centered values when addressing vaccination. The findings shed light on effective strategies for social mobilization through targeted public health messaging.

Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Drug Reactions Reported Among Sultan Qaboos University Hospital Staff.

This study aimed to report any suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) experienced by all vaccinated staff and students in a tertiary teaching hospital following COVID-19 vaccination. This retrospective study was conducted during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign at Sultan Qaboos University and Hospital in Muscat, Oman, from August to September 2021. An online survey was generated and sent to all staff and students via email and text messages. An announcement was made on the hospital website with a link to the survey. A total of 8,421 individuals reported being vaccinated at least once with a total of 11,468 doses administered from January to July 2021; 8,014 staff and students received the Pfizer-Biotech vaccine while 3,454 staff and students received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The survey received a total of 3,275 responses (response rate = 38.8%). Of these, 741 individuals (22.6%) experienced an ADR after vaccination and 67.2% (n = 498) were females (P <0.001). The majority of the ADRs reported were fever and chills (19.7%) followed by localised pain and swelling at the injection site (18.8%). Other ADRs such as hair loss (0.5%) were reported, and one staff/student reported a clot in the right leg. Among the responders, 27.0% considered their ADRs as mild while 25.0% considered them as severe. In the study cohort, mild symptoms of COVID-19 vaccines were reported. Females experienced more ADRs compared to males. Long-term observation of ADRs to the vaccines and follow-up monitoring should be done on subjects to preclude any unwanted effects.

Direct impact of COVID-19 vaccination in Chile: averted cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths

BackgroundChile rapidly implemented an extensive COVID-19 vaccination campaign, deploying a diversity of vaccines with a strategy that prioritized the elderly and individuals with comorbidities. This study aims to assess the direct impact of vaccination on the number of COVID-19 related cases, hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths averted during the first year and a half of the campaign.MethodsVia Chile’s transparency law, we obtained access to weekly event counts categorized by vaccination status and age. Integrating this data with publicly available census and vaccination coverage information, we conducted a comparative analysis of weekly incidence rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups from December 20, 2020 to July 2, 2022 to estimate the direct impact of vaccination in terms of the number of cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths averted, using an approach that avoids the need to explicitly specify the effectiveness of each vaccine deployed.ResultsWe estimated that, from December 20, 2020 to July 2, 2022 the vaccination campaign directly prevented 1,030,648 (95% Confidence Interval: 1,016,975-1,044,321) cases, 268,784 (95% CI: 264,524-273,045) hospitalizations, 85,830 (95% CI: 83,466-88,194) ICU admissions and 75,968 (95% CI: 73,909-78,028) deaths related to COVID-19 among individuals aged 16 years and older. This corresponds to a reduction of 26% of cases, 66% of hospital admissions, 70% of ICU admissions and 67% of deaths compared to a scenario without vaccination. Individuals 55 years old or older represented 67% of hospitalizations, 73% of ICU admissions and 89% of deaths related to COVID-19 prevented.ConclusionsThis study highlights the role of Chile's vaccination campaign in reducing COVID-19 disease burden, with the most substantial reductions observed in severe outcomes.

Area and individual level analyses of demographic and socio-economic disparities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Belgium

Vaccination has played a major role in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic. However, vaccination status can be influenced by demographic and socio-economic factors at individual and area level.In the context of the LINK-VACC project, the Belgian vaccine register for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign was linked at individual level with other registers, notably the COVID-19 laboratory test results and demographic and socio-economic variables from the DEMOBEL database. The present article aims at investigating to which extent COVID-19 vaccination status is associated with area level and/or individual level demographic and socio-economic factors. From a sample of all individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 (LINK-VACC sample) demographic and socio-economic indicators are derived and their impact on vaccination coverages at an aggregated geographical level (municipality) is quantified. The same indicators are calculated for the full Belgian population, allowing to assess the representativeness of the LINK-VACC sample with respect to the impact of demographic and socio-economic disparities on vaccination uptake.In a second step, hierarchical models are fitted to the individual level LINK-VACC data to disentangle the individual and municipality effects allowing to evaluate the added value of the availability of individual level data in this context.The most important effects observed at the individual level are reflected in the aggregated data at the municipality level. Multilevel analyses show that most of the demographic and socio-economic impacts on vaccination are captured at the individual level, although accounting for area level in individual level analyses improve the overall description.

The impact of COVID-19 vaccination campaign on pediatric vaccine uptake based on parents’ attitudes towards mandatory and recommended vaccination in Southern Italy

IntroductionThis study investigates the association between parental attitudes towards mandatory and recommended vaccines in the National Immunization Plan (NIP) of Italy and their acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5–11 years. MethodsUsing data from approximately 42,000 children in Southern Italy, parental attitudes towards previous vaccinations were examined. Mandatory and recommended vaccinations were considered for the analysis, with the first shot of each schedule being considered relevant, regardless of when it was administered or whether the recommended number of doses was administered. A multivariate logistic regression was performed to analyze associations between the covariates of age, sex, adherence to mandatory vaccinations, number of recommended vaccinations, and COVID-19 vaccination. ResultsThe COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate was 50.7% in our sample. We revealed a strong association between parental attitudes towards previous vaccinations and the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine. Mandatory vaccinations under the NIP showed the highest acceptance rates, and among non-mandatory vaccines, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine had the highest acceptance rate, potentially due to its co-administration with the hexavalent vaccine. The study identified a trend of lower COVID-19 vaccine coverage in younger children. ConclusionsThe study underscores the importance of co-administration approaches and well-planned vaccination schedules in enhancing vaccine coverage. It suggests that integrating newer vaccines, like the COVID-19 vaccine, into established vaccination schedules could potentially increase acceptance and coverage. The findings highlight the urgency of addressing vaccine hesitancy, particularly in the pediatric population, to ensure high vaccination coverage and effective disease control. Further research is needed to explore the potential strategies to increase vaccine acceptance.

Guaranteed Cash Incentives Boosted COVID-19 Vaccinations Of Young Adults: Evidence From West Virginia.

Guaranteed small cash incentives were widely employed by policy makers during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, but the impact of these programs has been largely understudied. We were the first to exploit a statewide natural experiment of one such program implemented in West Virginia in 2021 that provided a $100 incentive to fully vaccinated adults ages 16-35. Using individual-level data from the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, we isolated the policy effect through a difference-in-discontinuities design that exploited the discontinuity in incentive eligibility at age thirty-five. We found that the $100 incentive was associated with a robust increase in the proportion of people ever vaccinated against COVID-19 and the proportion who completed or intended to complete the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines. The policy effects were also likely to be more pronounced among people with low incomes, those who were unemployed, and those with no prior COVID-19 infection. The guaranteed cash incentive program may have created more equitable access to vaccines for disadvantaged populations. Additional outreach may also be needed, especially to unvaccinated people with prior COVID-19 infections.

Relative vaccine protection, disease severity, and symptoms associated with the SARS-CoV-2 omicron subvariant BA.2.86 and descendant JN.1 in Denmark: a nationwide observational study

During the 2023 Danish COVID-19 vaccination campaign, an updated monovalent mRNA vaccine targeting the SARS-CoV-2 omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant was administered. However, the rapid spread of a genetically divergent omicron BA.2.86 subvariant, JN.1, since September, 2023, poses potential challenges due to its rapid dominance and possible immune escape. Using national electronic health registry data from all regions of Denmark, we aimed to investigate whether the SARS-CoV-2 subvariant BA.2.86, and its descendant JN.1, differed from other circulating variants in terms of their ability to escape vaccine protection, the risk of infection leading to severe disease, and self-reported symptoms among infected people. In this observational study, we included all residents of Denmark aged 65 years and older who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR between Oct 1 and Dec 31, 2023, and for whom genomic data on the SARS-CoV-2 variant that had caused their infection were available. Data from clinical testing, sentinel, and self-sampling-based surveillance were linked with national electronic civil, vaccination, and hospitalisation registers. The relative protection of the XBB.1.5 updated COVID-19 vaccine against BA.2.86 infections versus infections with other variants was analysed in a case-only study, and the relative risk of hospitalisation in people infected with BA.2.86 versus other variants was analysed in a case-control study. Both analyses were adjusted for time, comorbidities, and previous vaccination history, among other potential confounders. Additionally, prevalence patterns in self-reported symptoms among people of all ages infected with SARS-CoV-2 were reported separately by subvariant. Of the 7581 people in Denmark aged 65 years or older who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR during the study period, 5882 (78%) samples were eligible for sequencing. 3862 (66%) of these passed quality control, were successfully sequenced, and the SARS-CoV-2 variant and subvariant identified, and these individuals were included in the study. Of these 3862 people, 2184 (57%) were infected with the BA.2.86 subvariant, including 1615 JN.1 infections. Participants infected with BA.2.86 had 1·52 (95% CI 1·25-1·86) times the odds, and those infected with JN.1 had 1·60 (1·27-2·02) times the odds, of having received the XBB.1.5 vaccine at least 7 days before their infection compared with participants infected with a non-BA.2.86 variant. The severity analysis showed no evidence of association between the infecting variant and the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation (odds ratio 1·04 [95% CI 0·86-1·26] for BA.2.86 and 1·07 [0·85-1·34] for JN.1). Similarly, there was no evidence of differences in self-reported symptoms by variant strain. Compared with other SARS-CoV-2 variants, BA.2.86 and the JN.1 sublineage were less sensitive to vaccine-induced immune protection from the XBB.1.5 updated COVID-19 vaccine; however, we found no evidence that infection with BA.2.86 or JN.1 resulted in increased disease severity or different symptom profiles. Although less effective against the new variants, XBB.1.5 vaccination remains protective and reduces the risk of infection and COVID-19 disease. The Danish Government and the EU's EU4Health programme.

Serum and Salivary IgG and IgA Response After COVID-19 Messenger RNA Vaccination

There is still considerable controversy in the literature regarding the capacity of intramuscular messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination to induce a mucosal immune response. To compare serum and salivary IgG and IgA levels among mRNA-vaccinated individuals with or without previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this cohort study, SARS-CoV-2-naive participants and those with previous infection were consecutively included in the CoviCompare P and CoviCompare M mRNA vaccination trials and followed up to day 180 after vaccination with either the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine or the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine at the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign (from February 19 to June 8, 2021) in France. Data were analyzed from October 25, 2022, to July 13, 2023. An ultrasensitive digital enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used for the comparison of SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific serum and salivary IgG and IgA levels. Spike-specific secretory IgA level was also quantified at selected times. A total of 427 individuals were included in 3 groups: participants with SARS-CoV-2 prior to vaccination who received 1 single dose of BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) (n = 120) and SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals who received 2 doses of mRNA-1273 (Moderna) (n = 172) or 2 doses of BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) (n = 135). The median age was 68 (IQR, 39-75) years, and 228 (53.4%) were men. SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific IgG saliva levels increased after 1 or 2 vaccine injections in individuals with previous infection and SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals. After vaccination, SARS-CoV-2-specific saliva IgA levels, normalized with respect to total IgA levels, were significantly higher in participants with previous infection, as compared with the most responsive mRNA-1273 (Moderna) recipients (median normalized levels, 155 × 10-5 vs 37 × 10-5 at day 29; 107 × 10-5 vs 54 × 10-5 at day 57; and 104 × 10-5 vs 70 × 10-5 at day 180 [P < .001]). In contrast, compared with day 1, spike-specific IgA levels in the BNT162b2-vaccinated SARS-CoV-2-naive group increased only at day 57 (36 × 10-5 vs 49 × 10-5 [P = .01]). Bona fide multimeric secretory IgA levels were significantly higher in individuals with previous infection compared with SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals after 2 antigenic stimulations (median optical density, 0.36 [IQR, 0.16-0.63] vs 0.16 [IQR, 0.10-0.22]; P < .001). The findings of this cohort study suggest that mRNA vaccination was associated with mucosal immunity in individuals without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, but at much lower levels than in previously infected individuals. Further studies are needed to determine the association between specific saliva IgA levels and prevention of infection or transmission.

Optimal vaccination and treatment policies with constrained inequalities to study limited vaccination resources for a multistrain reaction–diffusion [formula omitted] model of COVID-19

The availability of an effective vaccine is a major challenge in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. In this article, we propose a comprehensive strategy incorporating distributed controls via vaccination and treatment while considering the limitations of available resources expressed as inequalities constrained. Our approach utilizes a spatiotemporal model that includes multiple strains of the virus and considers spatial heterogeneity, providing a more accurate representation of disease transmission. By using a generalized two-strain ODE model, we effectively capture the evolution of COVID-19, including various strains and variants. To validate our model, we establish the positivity and boundedness of the system’s solution. Through the exploration of vaccination and treatment controls. Our study aims to reduce the spread of the disease between strains and identify optimal values that minimize the number of infected individuals and associated costs. This work provides useful insights into effective strategies for controlling the COVID-19 epidemic, even with limited vaccination resources. Furthermore, we demonstrate the existence of controls and describe their characterizations in terms of state and adjoint functions. The penalty method is used to treat the inequalities constrained. More importantly, our numerical simulation shows that adequate vaccination resources and simultaneous treatment can effectively reduce and even eliminate the spread of COVID-19.

The experience of intercultural mediators in the Italian COVID-19 vaccination campaign

ABSTRACT This research investigates the experience of intercultural mediators who worked with local health authorities and civil society organizations to disseminate information about COVID-19 vaccines to migrants in two Italian territories. Interviews with intercultural mediators underlined the challenges that they faced when translating on the frontline of the vaccination campaign, including the translation of highly specialized terminology and the handling of vaccine-hesitant narratives circulating among the migrant population. In the context of COVID-19, translation involved not only transmission between languages, but also a negotiation between medical discourse and the hopes, concerns, fears, and desires of a culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Estimating All-Cause Deaths Averted in the First Two Years of the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in Italy.

Comparing deaths averted by vaccination campaigns is a crucial public health endeavour. Excess all-cause deaths better reflect the impact of the pandemic than COVID-19 deaths. We used a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous factors model to regress daily all-cause deaths on annual trend, seasonality, and environmental temperature in three Italian regions (Lombardy, Marche and Sicily) from 2015 to 2019. The model was used to forecast excess deaths during the vaccinal period (December 2020-October 2022). We used the prevented fraction to estimate excess deaths observed during the vaccinal campaigns, those which would have occurred without vaccination, and those averted by the campaigns. At the end of the vaccinal period, the Lombardy region proceeded with a more intensive COVID-19 vaccination campaign than other regions (on average, 1.82 doses per resident, versus 1.67 and 1.56 in Marche and Sicily, respectively). A higher prevented fraction of all-cause deaths was consistently found in Lombardy (65% avoided deaths, as opposed to 60% and 58% in Marche and Sicily). Nevertheless, because of a lower excess mortality rate found in Lombardy compared to Marche and Sicily (12, 24 and 23 per 10,000 person-years, respectively), a lower rate of averted deaths was observed (22 avoided deaths per 10,000 person-years, versus 36 and 32 in Marche and Sicily). In Lombardy, early and full implementation of adult COVID-19 vaccination was associated with the largest reduction in all-cause deaths compared to Marche and Sicily.

COVID-19 Vaccines and Heavy Menstrual Bleeding: The Impact of Media Attention on Reporting to EudraVigilance.

During the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, over 34,000 reports of heavy menstrual bleeding following the administration of COVID-19 vaccines originating in the Economic European Area were submitted to EudraVigilance, the European Union database of suspected adverse drug reactions. More than 90% of these reports were sent by consumers while the remaining by healthcare professionals. Public concerns regarding menstruation disorders in COVID-19 vaccinees were also covered by the media. We investigated the impact of media attention on the reporting trends of heavy menstrual bleeding to EudraVigilance. We used media outlets published in the Economic European Area on menstrual disorders and COVID-19 vaccines from the beginning of the vaccination campaign in the Economic European Area (1 January, 2021) until December 2022 (i.e., after the regulatory request to add the adverse event to the product information) and spontaneous reports from EudraVigilance. We found that the publication of safety updates from regulatory authorities and subsequent coverage in media outlets preceded increased reporting to EudraVigilance. Furthermore, the heavy menstrual bleeding reported in the cases occurred several weeks or months earlier and were not submitted to the respective date. The analysis suggests that the spikes in reporting of heavy menstrual bleeding were to some extent influenced by media coverage in some countries. Consumer reporting to the European Union spontaneous data collection system, EudraVigilance, was of high value for regulatory safety reviews, albeit the reporting behaviours were not free of the influence of the media. These sources of information can be investigated to understand the context of safety concerns of public health interest.

Economic Evaluation of COVID-19 Immunization Strategies: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis.

This study aimed to systematically assess global economic evaluation studies on COVID-19 vaccination, offer valuable insights for future economic evaluations, and assist policymakers in making evidence-based decisions regarding the implementation of COVID-19 vaccination. Searches were performed from January 2020 to September 2023 across seven English databases (PubMed, Web of Science, MEDLINE, EBSCO, KCL-Korean Journal Dataset, SciELO Citation Index, and Derwent Innovations Index) and three Chinese databases (Wanfang Data, China Science and Technology Journal, and CNKI). Rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Data were extracted from eligible studies usinga standardized data collection form, with the reporting quality of these studies assessed using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards 2022 (CHEERS 2022). Of the 40 studies included in the final review, the overall reporting quality was good, evidenced by a mean score of 22.6 (ranging from 10.5 to 28). Given the significant heterogeneity in fundamental aspects among the studies reviewed, a narrative synthesis was conducted. Most of these studies adopted a health system or societal perspective. They predominantly utilized a composite model, merging dynamic and static methods, within short to medium-term time horizons to simulate various vaccination strategies. The research strategies varied among studies, investigating different doses, dosages, brands, mechanisms, efficacies, vaccination coverage rates, deployment speeds, and priority target groups. Three pivotal parameters notably influenced the evaluation results: the vaccine's effectiveness, its cost, and the basic reproductive number (R0). Despite variations in model structures, baseline parameters, and assumptions utilized, all studies identified a general trend that COVID-19 vaccination is cost-effective compared to no vaccination or intervention. The current review confirmed that COVID-19 vaccination is a cost-effective alternative in preventing and controlling COVID-19. In addition, it highlights the profound impact of variables such as dose size, target population, vaccine efficacy, speed of vaccination, and diversity of vaccine brands and mechanisms on cost effectiveness, and also proposes practical and effective strategies for improving COVID-19 vaccination campaigns from the perspective of economic evaluation.

Lessons Learned on Observed-to-Expected Analysis Using Spontaneous Reports During Mass Vaccination.

During the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, observed-to-expected analysis was used by the European Medicines Agency to contextualise data from spontaneous reports to generate real-time evidence on emerging safety concerns that may impact the benefit-risk profile of COVID-19 vaccines. Observed-to-expected analysis compares the number of cases spontaneously reported for an event of interest after vaccination ('observed') to the 'expected' number of cases anticipated to occur in the same number of individuals had they not been vaccinated. Observed-to-expected analysis is a robust methodology that relies on several assumptions that have been described in regulatory guidelines and scientific literature. The use of observed-to-expected analysis to support the safety monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines has provided valuable insights and lessons on its design and interpretability, which could prove to be beneficial in future analyses. When undertaking an observed-to-expected analysis within the context of safety monitoring, several aspects need attention. In particular, we emphasise the importance of stratified and harmonised data collection both for vaccine exposure and spontaneous reporting data, the need for alignment between coding dictionaries and the crucial role of accurate background incidence rates for adverse events of special interest. While these considerations and recommendations were determined in the context of the COVID-19 mass vaccination setting, they are generalisable in principle.

Can hospitalists improve COVID-19 vaccination rates?

Three years after the start of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) pandemic, its effects continue to affect society and COVID-19 vaccination campaigns continue to be a topic of controversy and inconsistent...

COVID-19 vaccines and vaccinations coverage on news portals: Framing, Tone, and Source Analysis

A comparative quantitative content analysis was adopted to explore the frames, tones, and information sources for the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination in four countries in Africa. The news portals and countries for this study were purposively sampled based on the World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders for 2021. Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, and Botswana are among the top ten countries in Africa with the best Media Freedoms. The findings showed that Ghana’s news portals’ coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination campaigns used mainly unofficial sources in the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination stories, whereas Botswana, Namibia, and South African media used official sources. Other findings show that Ghana’s news portals covered COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination stories in a negative tone and employed conflict and economic consequence frames. Botswana, Namibia, and South African news portals, however, adopted neutral and positive tones and framed them according to human interest, responsibility, and morality. The results suggest that the text of the news articles from the four African countries’ coverage of the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination adopted different generic framing styles, and the tones were predominantly a mixture of positive, neutral, and negative.

Psychosocial Factors Influencing Parents' Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination for Their Children: An Italian Cross-Sectional Study.

Vaccine hesitancy poses a significant threat to the health of individuals across all age groups, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this cross-sectional study, an extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was applied to investigate psychosocial variables predicting intention to vaccinate children under 12 against COVID-19 in a sample of 420 Italian parents (Mean age = 40.4, SD = 5.9; Women = 78.1%). Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that, among the TPB variables, cognitive attitude, descriptive norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly predicted parents' vaccination intention. Furthermore, including trust in the institutions' ability to manage the vaccination campaign in the model significantly increased the explained variance in intention. These findings suggest that campaigns promoting childhood COVID-19 vaccination should not only emphasize the safety and effectiveness of vaccines for children but also focus on reducing barriers to vaccination. Additionally, attention should be given to enhancing the perception that this behavior is widespread among other parents, thus leveraging the power of social influence. Finally, and not less important, significant efforts should be directed toward building and reinforcing trust in the system of actors promoting and managing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Large-scale digital signatures of emotional response to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign

The same individuals can express very different emotions in online social media with respect to face-to-face interactions, partially because of intrinsic limitations of the digital environments and partially because of their algorithmic design, which is optimized to maximize engagement. Such differences become even more pronounced for topics concerning socially sensitive and polarizing issues, such as massive pharmaceutical interventions. Here, we investigate how online emotional responses change during the large-scale COVID-19 vaccination campaign with respect to a baseline in which no specific contentious topic dominates. We show that the online discussions during the pandemic generate a vast spectrum of emotional response compared to the baseline, especially when we take into account the characteristics of the users and the type of information shared in the online platform. Furthermore, we analyze the role of the political orientation of shared news, whose circulation seems to be driven not only by their actual informational content but also by the social need to strengthen one’s affiliation to, and positioning within, a specific online community by means of emotionally arousing posts. Our findings stress the importance of better understanding the emotional reactions to contentious topics at scale from digital signatures, while providing a more quantitative assessment of the ongoing online social dynamics to build a faithful picture of offline social implications.

The Vaccine Training Barometer: Assessing healthcare providers’ confidence to answer vaccine-related questions and their training needs

Healthcare providers (HCP) are seen by the public as the most trustworthy source of information about vaccination. While HCPs could be a valuable partner to increase vaccine confidence in general, it is not clear whether they feel confident themselves to address questions concerning vaccination. In the context of the EU Joint Action on Vaccination (EU-JAV), the Vaccine Training Barometer, an online survey tool, was developed to assess how frequently HCPs receive questions about vaccination, how confident they feel to answer these questions, and to what extent they are willing to follow extra training. After a pilot test in Flanders, Belgium, the Barometer was launched and completed by 833 HCPs in Flanders and 291 HCPs in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, Navarre and Valencian Community from November 2020 until January 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, just before and during the start of the first COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. In both countries, HCPs frequently received questions about vaccination (mostly on a daily or weekly basis), and about two thirds of them indicated that the frequency of questions had increased during the three months prior to completing the survey. Most questions were about the side effects and safety of vaccines. In both countries, a considerable proportion of HCPs did not feel confident to answer vaccine-related questions (31.5% felt confident in Flanders, 21.6% in Spain). A large proportion of HCPs received questions in the last three months before the survey that they could not answer (52.4% of respondents in Flemish sample, 41.5% in Spanish sample). Only 11.4% (Flanders) and 11.3% (Spain) of the respondents felt they gained sufficient knowledge through their standard education to be able to answer questions about vaccination. Almost all respondents were willing to follow extra training on vaccination (Flanders: 95.4%, Spain: 96.6%). The Vaccine Training Barometer is thus a useful tool to monitor HCPs’ confidence to answer questions about vaccination and to capture their training needs.

Vacunación COVID-19 y búsquedas web sobre salud mental: un estudio infodemiológico mundial

BackgroundThe association between worldwide COVID-19 vaccination and mental health has been largely unexplored by means of infodemiological studies. ObjectiveTo explore how global public interest in different mental health topics changed between the pre-vaccination pandemic stage and the different periods of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. MethodsIn this study were examined the relative search volume (RSV) in Google Trends for “anxiety”, “depression”, “stress”, and “suicide” between March 1st, 2020 to January 1st, 2023. The RSV for each term was compared with respect to 4 periods: the pre-vaccination pandemic stage; the period from initiation of vaccination until 50% of the population was fully vaccinated (FV); the period from 50% FV to 60% FV; and the period after 60% FV. ResultsA significant lower mean RSV on anxiety, depression and suicide was found once 60% of the world population had been FV compared to different previous vaccination periods and with the pre-vaccination pandemic stage. ConclusionsThere seems to be less need for information worldwide on anxiety, depression and suicide topics once 60% of the population is FV against COVID-19. Overcoming this vaccination milestone may have had a positive impact on public interest in specific mental health issues.