Covid anti-vaxxers: 'Shut down fake news sites,' begs daughter

Fake news websites about the pandemic need to be shut down, according to a woman who says her parents have been sucked into conspiracy theories.

She said her parents initially thought Covid-19 was no worse than the flu, but they soon moved on to more extreme theories.

The woman from Cardiff, who is worried about her parents' mental health, has spoken to Newyddion S4C anonymously.

One Welsh GP said the anti-vaccination movement was a "big problem".

The woman said her parents had found a "huge community on Twitter and all sorts of other different websites" to feed their belief in conspiracy theories.

The theories include those "about why Covid exists... that it's either here to control the population or that it's completely fake," she said.

"One of the conspiracy theories is that the blue disposable masks that people wear has asbestos in them.

"They have theories on every aspect of what's been going on over the past year... and that wasn't part of their life before."

And while the woman has tried to do everything to persuade her parents, she says they still believe false theories about the vaccine.

"It was a shock because it was so unexpected," she added.

"They were aware that we didn't share the same attitude so they tried to hide it from us until it went too far. They had convinced themselves that they knew the truth and that we had been brainwashed.

"Their version of reality now is that everyone who gets the vaccine will die in the autumn or if we don't die... at best, we will all have auto-immune diseases.

"Obviously as parents they don't want that to be true but that's what they believe."

The woman said her parents have not understood how "cunning" some people on the internet can be when sharing these lies.

She has called for more to be done to close the fake news websites and emphasise the facts in such uncertain times.

GP Eilir Hughes, from Nefyn, Gwynedd, who has treated Covid patients throughout the pandemic, is becoming more concerned about the anti-vaccination movement.

"It is a big problem because when we come across these people to try and offer the vaccine to them… and try and give them the other side - that it's the truth that the vaccine is very useful in preventing serious illness, death and hospital care, they don't want to know," he said.

"And very often they can get quite unreasonable in their response. Misinformation is going viral. The information gets to them very often, from other countries, from professional platforms."