ELEVEN PER CENT of people in Ireland surveyed by UCD academics thought that “the symptoms that most people blame on coronavirus appear to be linked to 5G network radiation.”
71% of people disagreed with that statement and the remainder were unsure. 17% of people in the UK believed the conspiracy theory.
The UK was the most sceptical about the pandemic’s cause out of the countries surveyed: Ireland, Italy, Norway, the UK, Poland and Germany.
Despite 31% of people in Ireland thinking the number of deaths from coronavirus were exaggerated by government, Ireland also had the most trust in vaccines out of the six countries.
75% of people of the 2,030 Irish people surveyed in January believed that nearly all scientists agree that vaccines are safe.
In contrast only 62% of Polish people believed there was a scientific consensus on vaccines.
Research from University College London found that out of 25 Nobel prize winners who spoke about their view on vaccines, 24 were pro-vaccine and one was anti-vaccine.
An analysis of Tweets about the pandemic found that the anti-vaccine Nobel laureate was referenced and amplified 42.9 times more than the general pro-vaccine consensus in the scientific community.
The study was part of PERTITIA, an EU-funded project investigating public trust in expertise.
Approximately 2,000 people in each country were surveyed online to gauge their views on the pandemic and vaccines.
86% of Irish respondents said they were vaccinated or would get vaccinated soon, while 10% said they would never get vaccinated.
The Irish portion of the survey was conducted by the UCD School of Philosophy and led by Professor Maria Baghramian.
“A key point in Ireland is the publics’ belief in the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, and this is reflected in the very high take up of Covid vaccines here,” she said.
“It’s also very reassuring to see the low prevalence of belief in conspiracies around the pandemic in Ireland, with the lowest percentage (10%) in the countries studied believing that the symptoms of coronavirus are linked to 5G network radiation.
“Irish respondents, and those in Italy, also showed the highest rate of willingness to comply with coronavirus restrictions put in place by the government, with 88% of people saying that they always or sometimes do this.”
The study also found that young people (26%) and religious people were the most likely groups to believe that 5G was causing the pandemic, particularly non-Christian religious people (35%).
As of last week, 4.04 million people (81.8% of the population) in Ireland had their first vaccine dose, while 80.8% of people were fully vaccinated according to Our World in Data.
There have been a large number of conspiracy theories connecting 5G with the pandemic over the last two years.
The theories, which generally either suggest that Covid-19 can be transmitted by 5G or that 5G makes people more susceptible to catching it, have no basis in truth but have been widely shared on social media.
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