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From a synthetic virus to vaccine conspiracy theories, combine the highest persistent false claims about the pandemic
As the world continues to fight the coronavirus, it is also fighting another type of epidemic: incorrect information.This “infodemia” is as destructive as COVID-19 itself, leading others to minimize the severity of the disease and forget about public fitness.recommendation in favor of unproven remedies or “cures”.A recent survey through the John S Foundation.and James L.Knight and Gallup revealed that 4 out of five Americans say online dissemination of incorrect information is the biggest challenge facing the media.Even with broad evidence to the contrary, ideals are difficult to change.Here are some of the top insidious lies about the pandemic and why they’re wrong.
Myth 1: the new coronavirus was designed in a laboratory in China. Because the pathogen first made an impression and began infecting other people in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that it started in a laboratory there. Some conspiracy theorists have even speculated that it was designed as a biological weapon, US intelligence agencies have categorically denied this possibility, saying that the intelligence network “agrees with the broad clinical consensus. That the COVID-19 virus it was not of human origin or genetically modified. Nor has credible evidence emerged to aid accidental laboratory release. As Scientific American reported this year, Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who studies bat coronaviruses and whom Trump’s lab and others had reported that it was the source of COVID-19, compared to the series from the pathogen to that of other coronaviruses that his team had taken from the bat caves and found that it did not fit into either of them. Zhengli also explained in detail by what your lab may not have been the source of the virus in a long reaction in Science. In reaction to requests for an invest For independent foreign research on the origin of the virus, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission. But the evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 was not created in a laboratory.
Myth 2: Wealthy elites deliberately spread the virus to gain strength and benefit. In a video of a conspiracy theory film called Plandemic and an e-book he co-wrote, a woman named Judy Mikovits, who has already published a high profile and now retracted The disease director, Anthony Fauci, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggest that they used their strength to benefit from the disease.of the film’s claims, many of which appear elsewhere in this article.of his false statements. However, the large number of people who have seen it suggests that incorrect information is perniciously spreading.
Myth 3: COVID-19 is no worse than the flu. Since the early days of the pandemic, Trump has claimed that the disease is no more harmful than seasonal flu.While the precise rate of death from COVID-19 is difficult to pin down, epidemiologists suspect it is much more consistent than that of the flu.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the latter causes around 12,000 to 61,000 deaths consistent with the year in the US.But it’s not the first time By contrast, COVID-19 has caused more than 169,000 deaths in the country to date.
Many others also have partial immunity to influenza due to past vaccines or infections, while many countries around the world have not yet found COVID-19.So no, coronavirus isn’t just the flu.
Myth 4: You don’t need to wear a mask. Despite the fact that the early CDC and WHO rules on masks are confusing and inconsistent, there is now a strong consensus among the public fitness government, backed by studies, that wearing a face mask can restrict transmission of the coronavirus to through small exhaled drops. Masks have long been known to be an effective means of source control (preventing a physically ill patient from spreading disease to others), but the initial recommendations were based, in part, on the fact that there were shortage of high quality “N95” and surgical mask. We now know that the cloth mask can be an effective alternative. But despite the evidence, many other people still refuse to wear one, seeing it as a violation of civil liberties or castration. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has gone so far as to point to an executive order that prohibits city governments from implementing mask protection orders. And he sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms when she instituted one, even though she has now withdrawn it. But as coronavirus cases have risen in the United States in recent months, even states that were once staunchly resistant have now implemented mask orders.
Myth 5: hydroxychloroquine is an effective remedy. When a small study now widely criticized in France reported that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine might be effective in treating the disease, Trump and others accepted it and continued to promote the drug despite mounting evidence that it does not benefit patients. patients. with COVID-19. In a tweet, Trump called the hydroxychloroquine remedy “one of the most important changes in the history of medicine,” and discussed it several times at his public briefings on the coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration first issued an emergency use authorization for the drug, however the company warned it was opposing its use due to the threat of disruption at the facility and eventually revoked its authorization. Several studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine does not oppose COVID-19 in other exposed people. And in June, the National Institutes of Health halted its clinical trial of the drug, saying that while it was not destructive to patients, it offered no benefits. Yet Trump continues to exaggerate drugs. Just a few weeks ago, he retweeted a video, viewed tens of millions of times before social media corporations took it down, featuring Stella Immanuel, a Houston, Texas-based physician (who made questionable claims in the afterlife and added that doctors have used DNA in remedies and that demons cause safe medical situations by having sex with other people in their dreams) claiming that hydroxychloroquine is an effective remedy for COVID-19.
Myth 6: The Black Lives Matter protests have led to increased broadcasting. When thousands of others began to take to the streets in May and June to protest the police killing of George Floyd and the violence against Black Americans, some other people wondered whether the mass demonstrations would cause an increase in cases. of coronavirus. But despite the remarks by Republicans like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio that protests pose as wonderful a threat as going to church or the gym, there has not been such a marked increase in protests. A white-paper investigation of the protests in 315 of the largest cities in the United States through the National Bureau of Economic Investigation found no evidence that they led to more COVID-19 cases or deaths. And those who did not attend the protests may have stayed home longer than they would have otherwise. The fact that the protests were held outdoors, where the threat of transmission is much lower, and that many protesters were wearing masks, probably prevented the spread of the events. Meanwhile, as states have reopened, there has been a notable increase in cases of dining in bars and restaurants, as well as in other indoor settings, most likely due to the threat of airborne spread.
Myth 7: Spikes in cases are due to an increase in testing while coronavirus cases have begun to accumulate in many parts of the United States in recent months, Trump has claimed that those spikes are just the result of more people.He tweeted that “without testsArray … we would show almost no “instance” and said in interviews that the explanation of why they seem to have accumulated is due to the accumulation of evidence.If this situation were true, we would expect the percentage of positive tests to decrease.But many analyses have shown otherwise. The rate has risen in many states with giant epidemics (such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida), while it has declined in those that have controlled their epidemics.(such as New York), indicating that the national increase in positive evidence reflects a genuine increase in some cases.
Myth 8: We can achieve herd immunity by letting the virus spread through the population. At the start of the pandemic, some speculators said that selected policies across the UK and Sweden gave the impression that they were making plans to allow the virus to spread through their populations until they reached herd immunity, the point at which many other people are immune to the virus to prevent it from spreading to other people. (The governments of either country have denied that this concept was their official strategy, however the UK was behind schedule in issuing a full blockade and Sweden made the decision not to apply generalized restrictions.) However, there is a basic flaw. in this approach: Experts estimate that roughly 60 to 70% of other people would want to achieve COVID-19 to discharge herd immunity. And given the disease’s relatively high death rate, letting it infect so many other people can lead to millions of deaths. This tragedy is what happened with the 1918 influenza pandemic, in which about 50 million people are believed to have died. The death rate from COVID-19 in the UK is among the highest in the world. Sweden, for its part, has recorded far more deaths than neighboring countries, and its economy has suffered, although it has not stopped. Most likely, many lives would have been saved if those countries had acted earlier.
Myth 9: Any vaccine will be harmful and pose a greater threat than COVID-19. As scientists rush to expand a vaccine for the disease, concerned reports have emerged that many other people would possibly refuse to get one once it can be obtained. Conspiracy theories about possible vaccines have circulated among anti-vax teams and in viral videos. At Plandemic, Mikovits wrongly claims that any COVID-19 vaccine will “kill millions” and that other vaccines have (in fact, vaccines save millions of lives each year). Another conspiracy theory claims that Bill Gates has a secret plan to use vaccines to implant traceable microchips into other people; Gates rejected the claim, which is not supported by evidence. Most Americans still help vaccinate, but the few voices against it have multiplied. A recent study observed that anti-vaccine teams on Facebook are smaller than pro-vaccination teams, they are more strongly interconnected with unsafe teams. A recent Gallup vote found that one in 3 Americans would not receive a COVID-19 vaccine if they had it today, and that Republicans are less likely to get vaccinated than Democrats. There are clever reasons to be wary of the protection of a new vaccine, yet this need for caution is why major applicants are now conducting large-scale clinical trials involving tens of thousands of others to discover protection. and effectiveness. If one or more of them are successful, it will be imperative for others to get vaccinated to save lives, including perhaps your own.
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