Anti-vax stickers on posts across area are ‘form of littering and vandalism’, says resident

Stickers with anti-vax messages have been left on posts across Grantham and one resident believes they are making the place “untidy”.

The stickers have been left on pedestrian crossing lights, litter bins and on posts outside a school near Barrowby Lodge.

The messages on the stickers are linked to the effects of radiation, the proposed site of a G5 mast and other messages against Covid-19 vaccines.

Michael Davis, who lives in the area, questioned on a Facebook post “who is sticking these all over Grantham?”.

Mr Davis said: “I think they are a form of littering and vandalism.

“They make the places untidy, as well as the fact they have not been fact checked.”

Stickers with similar messages have been seen on bollards and posts along the Grantham High Street and Watergate.

In 2021, the UK parliament published an article on Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, looking at the sources of information and its public health impact.

It said the information included “false claims about their safety, efficacy, ingredients, side effects and purpose” and the main source of the information was social media.

It added: “Misinformation may be amplified by social media algorithms that prioritise content likely to receive a high amount of engagement.”

On the public health concern, it said there was a risk of it leading to a “reduction in vaccine uptake”.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the World Health Organisation called this an ‘infodemic’, which is a “overbundance of information, both accurate and inaccurate” that goes alongside a disease outbreak and makes the situation more challenging.

In 2022, WHO also released a social media toolkit for healthcare practioners in 2022 to tackle Covid-19 misinformation to “ensure communities have access to life-saving public health information from trusted sources”.