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The COVID-19 pandemic has been damaging to the lives of people all around theworld. Accompanied by the pandemic is an infodemic, an abundant anduncontrolled spreading of potentially harmful misinformation. The infodemic mayseverely change the pandemic's course by interfering with public healthinterventions such as wearing masks, social distancing, and vaccination. Inparticular, the impact of the infodemic on vaccination is critical because itholds the key to reverting to pre-pandemic normalcy. This paper presentsfindings from a global survey on the extent of worldwide exposure to theCOVID-19 infodemic, assesses different populations' susceptibility to falseclaims, and analyzes its association with vaccine acceptance. Based onresponses gathered from over 18,400 individuals from 40 countries, we find astrong association between perceived believability of misinformation andvaccination hesitancy. Additionally, our study shows that only half of theonline users exposed to rumors might have seen the fact-checked information.Moreover, depending on the country, between 6% and 37% of individualsconsidered these rumors believable. Our survey also shows that poorer regionsare more susceptible to encountering and believing COVID-19 misinformation. Wediscuss implications of our findings on public campaigns that proactivelyspread accurate information to countries that are more susceptible to theinfodemic. We also highlight fact-checking platforms' role in betteridentifying and prioritizing claims that are perceived to be believable andhave wide exposure. Our findings give insights into better handling of riskcommunication during the initial phase of a future pandemic.

Misinformation, Believability, and Vaccine Acceptance Over 40 Countries: Takeaways From the Initial Phase of The COVID-19 Infodemic