Communication in the Time of Uncertainty and Misinformation

The COVID-19 pandemic presents many challenges for public communication, including widespread misinformation and political polarisation of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 vaccine. However, public communication has played a vital role in addressing the challenges (Mani et al., In press; Paek & Hove, 2021; Torres et al., 2021). Since the health emergency was declared, fake news, conspiracy theories and misleading information have been broadly circulated. In the current digital environment, misinformation spreads quickly and widely at unprecedented levels. COVID-19 misinformation has caused mistrust in governmental and health authorities, resulting in undesirable health outcomes such as rejection of pre-ventive measures and vaccine hesitancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) have declared the widespread dissemination of COVID-19 misinformation an ‘infodemic’.