The Reasons for the COVID-19 Anti-Vaccine in Turkey: Twitter Example

Abstract

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged at the end of 2019, spread to the world at an unprecedented speed and affected social and economic life. With the pandemic, many countries started vaccine studies, and COVID-19 vaccines developed in a short time. At the same time, anti-vaccine groups came together through social media tools and protests against the vaccine. The current study aims to determine the main arguments of anti-vaccine people. It examined that tweets (28074) posted on the Twitter platform with the hashtag #aşıolmayacağım between 1-31 December 2020. Tweets were downloaded through the MAXQDA program and analyzed with the qualitative method and content analysis technique. According to the findings, the reasons for the anti-vaccination are as follows: Doubts about the reality of Covid-19, beliefs that vaccines produced to control social life, distrust of vaccine developers, politicians, scientists, media, and hesitations about the compatibility of vaccines with religion. As in the rest of the world, serious studies are carried out on vaccination in Turkey. However, despite all efforts, 100% of the population could not be vaccinated. One of the most important reasons for this situation is anti-vaccine individuals. This study aims to guide scientists and health policymakers by identifying the causes of anti-vaccination.