Title of Research:  Role of photographs posted on social media on efficacy of covid vaccines

Acronym if any: PACoVaSM study (Photographs as Adjuvants in COvid VAccine in Social Media)

Study Design: Volunteers interested in the study will fill a form 24 hours before they get vaccinated and will be recruited if they fulfill inclusion criteria after consent. Those without any social media accounts will be allocated to Group X separately as they are likely to have correct information about the vaccine and may question the rationale behind this study. Others will be randomised into 2 arms (pun intended). Masking is compulsory but blinding is not possible due to the visual nature of the study.  Group 1 will not have their photograph taken during the administration of the vaccine. Group 2 will have a photograph taken as per specifications while the vaccine is being administered. They will post on their social media and link these to the locally developed What-You-Twit-Face-Gram-Panchayat App (henceforth called WYTFGP). WYTFGP will keep track of their likes, shares, reposts, subs, views, retweets and other sub-metrics. Rest of the post-vaccination follow up will be as per standard-of-care protocols. Outcome measures will then be correlated between the 2 groups. Subgroup analysis will be done to tease out correlations between different social media and also with the number of shares, reposts, subs, views, retweets and other sub-metrics including India-specific submetrics.

Objectives: To study the adverse effects, antibody response and covid infection rates after vaccination and it’s correlation with

• photographs posted in social media
• photograph properties like resolution, shutter-speed and ISO setting
• number and type of social media that photographs were posted in
• number of likes, shares, reposts, subs, views, retweets and other sub-metrics (subgroup analysis for Indian likes, shares, reposts, subs, views, retweets and other sub-metrics)

Results of the study need not be published as WYTFGP is open source and not encrypted – it is likely that all results will be available on the internets in real time. Experts like popular news channels, media powerhouses, politicians and social media users will analyse this data and publish their conclusions on multiple platforms including street corners. Their analysis and interpretation are apparently much better and louder than analysis by the study organisers, who are merely  scientific, medical and healthcare personnel. This expert analysis methodology will also ensure that you will get to know what the nation needs to know. We hope the results will not be Modified.

To express your willingness to participate and for any queries, please post a comment here or just clang a plate on your balcony and we’ll get in touch with you.