The phenomenon, which is largely found on social media, intensified this week when President Donald Trump retwed a fake video about a malaria drug that is a cure for the virus and revealed that Russian intelligence agencies were spreading incorrect information about the crisis. Websites in English.
Experts are concerned that the torrent of bad news is dangerously undermining efforts to curb the virus, which reached 150,000 deaths in the United States on Wednesday, worldwide, according to johns Hopkins University’s tally. More than a million people have died in the rest of the world.
The hardest-hit Florida reported 216 deaths, breaking the day set the day before.
Texas showed 313 more deaths, raising its total to 6,190, while the death toll in South Carolina exceeded 1,500 this week, more than double last month.
“It’s a genuine challenge in terms of seeking to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and the facts of the problem,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota. Research and politics.
He said the concern was that “people will be put at risk because they don’t have to fight the virus.”
Instead of fading to the new evidence, the claims have flourished, fed through combined messages from officials, transmitted on social media, amplified through leaders like Trump and mutated when faced with contradictory facts.
“You don’t want masks. There’s a cure,” Dr. Stella Immanuel promised in a video that sells hydroxychloroquine. “You don’t want other people locked up.”
The fact is that federal regulators last month revoked their approval of the drug as an emergency remedy amid growing evidence that it is not working and can have fatal side effects.
Even if effective, it would negate the need for masks and other measures to involve the epidemic.
None of this has prevented Trump, who has praised the drug, from retweating the video.
Twitter and Facebook began deleting the video Monday for violating COVID-19’s misinformation policies, but had already been viewed more than 20 million times.
Many of the claims in Emmanuel’s video are widely questioned by experts.
She has made even more statements in the past, saying that cysts, fibroids and other situations can be caused through sex with demons, that McDonald’s and Pokémon announce witchcraft, that extraterrestrial DNA is used in medical treatments, and that the human “reptile” part. “paintings in the government.
Other unsubstantiated theories and deceptions have claimed that the virus is genuine or that it is a biological weapon created throughout the United States or its adversaries.
A hoax in the early months of the outbreak claimed that the new 5G towers were spreading the virus through microwaves.
Another story argued that Microsoft founder Bill Gates planned to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips in the world’s 7 billion people.
Then there are the political theories: that doctors, hounds and the federal government conspire to lie about the risk of political harm the virus has for Trump.
Facebook CHIEF executive Mark Zuckerberg was asked about Emmanuel’s video at a debatable congressional hearing on Wednesday.
“We got rid of him because he violates our policies,” Zuckerberg said.
Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat leading the audience, responded by noting that another 20 million people had noticed the video before Facebook acted.
“Doesn’t that mean that your platform is so big, that even with the right policies in place, it can’t involve fatal content?” Cicillin asked Zuckerberg.
This was not the first video to contain data about the virus, and experts say it’s probably not the last.
A 26-minute video made from professionals that claims the government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, manufactured the virus and sent it to China seen more than 8 million times before the platforms acted.
The video, titled “Plandemic”, also warned that the mask may cause health problems, the false claim That Facebook quoted when removing the video from its site.
Judy Mikovits, the discredited physician “Plandemic”, was scheduled to appear on Sinclair Broadcast Group’s “America This Week”.
But the company, which operates television channels in 81 U.S. markets, has retained the segment, saying it is “not appropriate” to broadcast it.
This week, U.S. government officials Speaking under anonymity, they cited what they said, a transparent link between Russian intelligence and Internet sites with stories designed to spread data about coronavirus in the West. Russian officials have denied the allegations.
Of all the countless claims about the virus, those relating to the mask are among the most tenacious.
Carlos Lopez, a New York City resident, said he was wearing a mask when asked, but he didn’t think it was necessary.
“They politicize it as a tool,” he said. “I think it’s more about making Trump lose. It’s more of a scare tactic.”
He’s in the minority. A recent vote shows that 3 out of 4 Americans, Democrats and Republicans, have a national masking mandate.
However, the sceptics of the mask are a vocal minority and have combined to create social media pages where many false statements about the protection of the mask are shared.
Facebook has removed some pages, such as the Unmasking America !organization, which had nearly 10,000 members, but others remain.
In February, officials like the U.S. surgeon general suggested americans not buy masks because they were mandatory for the workers’ medical corps and possibly would not be effective in situations.
Public fitness officials changed their minds when it became clear that the virus could spread among other people without symptoms.
Still, Trump has been reluctant to wear a mask, mocked his rival Joe Biden for dressing up with one, and warned that other people can simply cover their faces just to hurt him politically.
He made a brutal 180-degree turn this month, claiming he had supported the mask, and then retwed Emmanuel’s opposite video to the mask.
Mixed signals hurt, Fauci said in an interview with NPR this month.
“The message was very confusing at first,” he said.
Many claims about masks claim to have destructive effects, such as blocked oxygen or even a superior threat of infection.
The video has been more than 20 million times.
“Although the face mask does not decrease oxygen levels. COVID yes,” he warned.
However, trusted medical governments are rejected by those who say that forcing others to wear masks is a step toward authoritarianism.
“Unless you take a stand, you’ll wear a mask for the rest of your life,” tweeted Simon Dolan, a British businessman who sued the law for his COVID-19 restrictions.
Trump’s reluctant, ambivalent and belated adoption of the mask has not convinced some of his staunchest supporters, who have fabricated increasingly elaborate theories for his change.
Some say he actually spoke in code and not literally the masks.
Or Tuathail witnessed how unwavering the incorrect information about COVID-19 may be when, after posting his video, he won emails from others who said they had cheated or hadn’t used the mask long enough to feel the negative effects.
This is surprising, according to the professor of psychology at the University of Florida Central Chrysalis Wright, who studies misinformation.
She said conspiracy theorists have interaction in intellectual gymnastics to align their ideals with reality.
“People just listen to what they think they already know,” he said.
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