Dad using Lego to bust COVID-19 vaccine myths

A Winnipeg man is back to the building blocks using the voices of world-renowned medical experts to make an educational - and entertaining- video about the COVID-19 vaccine.

One year ago Tyler Walsh's video for his sons took Canada by storm as he used Lego to bring to life Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's message to children about the pandemic. Now he is using his skills to help bust vaccine myths.

"I am always looking to create fun content," Walsh says.

His day job is as Economic Development Winnipeg's Digital and Content Marketing Manager, giving him the skills to create the videos. 

"I think what I found is a really cool avenue to be able to get valuable messages across to everyone from kids to adults. And with the vaccines rolling out and a lot of misinformation being spread around I thought this would be an opportunity to take a fun tongue-in-cheek look at some of those myths that people have actually heard."

Enlisting the voices of people such as Canada's Dr. Theresa Tam and Dr. Anthony Faucci from the United States, Walsh found clips where they were addressing myths about the vaccine and got out his camera.

"I did a fair amount of research on some of the myths that you hear, from the micro-chip thing to people saying if they already had COVID-19 that they do not need a vaccine."

Walsh says this video was a big project, taking thousands of photos for the stop animation, but worth it.

"I think that it is a good thing that we have come to this stage in the pandemic. And I think anything that I can do to utilize this platform that I've got with the fun Lego stop motion project to convince people to go out and get that vaccine and not be afraid to do so, I think is important work."

He says his favourite clip was from Tam, talking about being media and science smart.

"Listen to people who are experts in the science, the doctors and the scientists, but also be media smart. So understand where sources of information come from and like she says 'are those domains legitimate?' Or is it just some person in their basement trying to spread lies."