A “tsunami” of misinformation contributed to a drop in willingness among people to get the Covid vaccine.  That is according to Professor Heidi Larson, who said there was a tenfold increase in misinterpretations and “purposeful diversions” as the conversation around vaccines ramped up in the latter part of last year.  The director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said research from December showed the UK was “not bad” in terms of intent to get vaccinated against the virus.  Figures from the project suggested almost half of participants in the UK said they definitely would get a jab, and almost a third said they probably would.  Around 8% said they definitely would not, a lower percentage than the likes of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US.  Prof Larson said that in general, willingness around the vaccine was “relatively high” in April and May but since discussion around vaccines had increased, that had ebbed away.  Speaking during a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, she said: “As the summer went on and the imminent threat of the pandemic felt like it was waning – even though all signals said it’s going to come back – the willingness to take a vaccine, by September, had dropped quite a bit.  “It inched up a little bit in October when you started to see the resurgence pretty badly of the virus and it was looking pretty bad again.  “But also what’s happened, and I think part of the contribution to the dropping willingness, was that there was a lot more out there in the media, in the discussions about the vaccine candidates that there weren’t in April/May.  “And with all that new information about the multiple vaccines, all the trials, all the differences, came a whole tsunami of misinformation.  “So for every new piece of information about vaccines, there was I would say almost tenfold of all kinds of interpretations of it, and misinterpretations, and purposeful diversions.”  Professor Michael Parker, director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, who also took part in the discussion, said people needed to be better at recognising “there’s no risk-free option here”.  He said: “There are people who think these vaccines are risky but lockdowns are risky, travel movements are risky, taking kids out of school is risky, and not having a lockdown and just letting the virus run free is also risky.”  He said that while he felt there was a “very strong moral obligation to take the vaccine”, that was not the same as saying it should be compulsory.  There were a number of factors as to why a mandatory approach might not be beneficial, he said, including that it might not be the most effective way of getting more people to have the jab.  Discussing the idea of compelling healthcare workers to take the vaccine, he said that could also be problematic.  He said: “The last thing we want is loads of people leaving (the NHS) because they don’t want to have the vaccination, so let’s be reali