White House prepares to fight back in the Covid vaccine disinformation war
White House officials are devising ways to fight the spread of dangerous falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines, administration officials told CNN, as Republicans and their media allies ramp up their vocal skepticism about vaccines.
President Joe Biden himself could soon take on some of the corrosive messages emanating from the right, officials said, as the administration's vaccination efforts hit a wall just as the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus rips across the country. CNN spoke with five people in the administration who described the White House's efforts to fight back against the misinformation swirling about Covid-19 vaccines.
And this week, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy will make a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room to talk about how the level of misinformation is now an urgent public health issue, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Officials are wary of taking steps that could alienate Republicans further and generate more skepticism of vaccines that health experts uniformly say is safe. And Biden has acknowledged openly that neither he nor his administration is the best positioned to convince Republicans to get the shot, pointing instead to local physicians, pharmacists or clergy members as more trusted messengers.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-prepares-to-fight-back-in-the-covid-vaccine-disinformation-war/ar-AAM9AtZ
