Towards the end of summer of 2021, there seemed cause for cautious optimism for putting this pandemic behind us. It was clear that the route of viral transmission was airborne and not via surfaces (Goldman, 2021a), which means that masks are very efficient at reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
The number of cases in the United States and Europe were declining, and the first vaccines became available with many people lining up to get their jabs.
But not all. A significant portion of the population have been refusing to get vaccinated, some of whom were fooled or encouraged by pseudoscientific misinformation propagated on the Internet.
https://www.embopress.org/doi/pdf/10.15252/embr.202254675
