Replies

“That’s fiction unless you can prove it. I have seen research indicating the more vaccine doses, the more likely to get Covid.”

You may have read the false claims from a “Gateway Pundit” article titled, “Walgreens Reveals Unvaccinated Have the Lowest Positivity Rate for COVID — Triple and Double Vaxxed Groups Have the Worst Rate” This comes from social media posts using a poorly worded tweet from New York City health officials to incorrectly claim that vaccinated people were more susceptible to infection with the coronavirus than unvaccinated people. An unclear tweet from New York City health officials was meant to caution residents that the latest omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, might be more likely than previous variants to infect vaccinated or previously infected people. Social media posts misinterpreted the tweet to mean that vaccinated people were at higher risk than unvaccinated people. In that health article it correctly gave the following health info:

“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now accounts for 73% of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19.”

The imprecisely worded tweet was quickly misconstrued to mean that vaccinated people were at higher risk of infection than unvaccinated people, rather than — as intended — at a higher risk of infection with the new variant compared with previous ones.