August 10 (UPI) – Nearly 82% of COVID-19 data published on news sites, global fitness organizations and social media platforms between December and early April were rumors or conspiracy theories, according to a study published Monday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine. Hygiene Found.
“The public relies on data provided through their country’s fitness ministry and foreign fitness agencies,” the study’s co-author Saiful Islam told UPI.
The World Health Organization coined the term “infodemia” to refer to what it calls “an overabundance of data, some accurate and some not, that prevent others from finding reliable sources.”
For the study, the researchers reviewed data on COVID-19 published or published on fact-checking websites; social networks, adding Facebook and Twitter; and Internet sites for television networks and newspapers. They also reviewed THE WHO sites and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
They described conspiracy theories as “explanatory ideals about an individual or organization of other people who secretly execute the hell on malicious targets.”
Stigma is a “socially constructed procedure through which a userArray … discrimination and devaluation,” they said.
Of the 2,276 reports for which researchers received scores, 82%, or 1,856, were “false”.
Of these, 2049, or 89%, the reports were classified as rumors, which may later show as true, while 182, or 7.8%, were conspiracy theories, and 82, or 3.5%, were efforts to stigmatize victims of the virus. investigators said.
One such rumor, that intake of methanol, or highly concentrated alcohol, may simply disinfect the frame and kill the new coronavirus, spread temporarily on social media. Since then, it has linked to more than 800 deaths and nearly 6,000 hospitalizations in several countries, the researchers said.
Similarly, in March, reports in India warned that others were afraid of getting tested for COVID-19 for fear of ostracism in their local communities, investigators said.
This reluctance is likely due, at least in part, to efforts to stigmatize, or in some cases blame, those with the virus for its spread, they said.
Efforts to stigmatize fitness personnel treating coVID-19 patients and others of “Asian ethnicity” as threats to network fitness have been linked to dozens of violent attacks around the world, according to researchers.
In general, incorrect information on COVID-19 follows a similar trend to that seen in other epidemics, adding HIV and Ebola, suggesting that “during public aptitude crises, other people focus more on rumors and deceptions than in science,” the researchers noted.
They called on global governments and foreign agencies to monitor and demystify false accusations and “engage with social media corporations to spread the right information.”
“Governments established media surveillance to identify erroneous real-time and correct data from this data with clinical evidence,” Islam said.
“Since social media is the platform through which incorrect information is disseminated so quickly, policymakers also use this platform to disseminate appropriate information.”