ABSTRACT
Faced with Covid-19 people are overwhelmed with information coming from governmental or health care sources but also from social media and digital communication platforms. The Internet and especially social media are often inundated with unreliable or even false information regarding COVID-19 and vaccination against it. This seriously impacts the public health, since misinformed people may be hesitant towards the health-related measures enforced by the governments and health authorities, which, in turn, contributes to their vaccine hesitancy.The aim of the paper is to investigate the Internet memes created and popularized in Poland by supporters and opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations. The data for the study include memes published between December 2020 (vaccinations become available in Poland) to May 2021 and comes from the most popular, publicly accessible social networks and meme pages with the greatest number of followers. The content analysis relays on such variables as whether the meme is pro-or antivaccine, what persuasive appeals (emotion, fear, rationality) are used, number of reactions and shares. Additionally, the analysis looks at the thematic content of the memes and tries to specify whether the pro-and anti-vaccination memes contain more gist than verbatim information. The analysis aims to define persuasion methods that pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine groups use in their memes.
ABSTRACT
The aim of the study was to determine the usefulness of FCoV Ab rapid serological tests in the diagnosis of the effusive form of FIP in cats. The cats included in the study were divided into two groups. The study group consisted of 40 cats with a strain of FCoV causing FIP (the presence of the M1058L mutation) in the abdominal fluid determined using PCR. The control group consisted of 15 cats with ascites caused by factors other than FCoV infection. Serological examination demonstrated the presence of antibodies to feline coronavirus in 28 out of 40 samples of the fluid collected from animals included in the study group, which constituted 70.0% of the tested samples. No antibodies to coronavirus were identified in any of the peritoneal fluid samples collected from the cats included in the control group using rapid immunochromatographic tests. The results obtained in our own studies demonstrated that the serological test ensured very high probability, especially in the detection of infected animals, as well as, although with a slightly lower probability, in the exclusion of the presence of FIP virus infection in the samples of fluid collected from the peritoneal cavity.