PROVIDENCE, R.I. – As the world struggles to find a vaccine and a remedy for COVID-19, it is said that there is no antidote to the sight of the nascent epidemic of conspiracy theories, deceptions, anti-masking myths and false remedies.
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 fear that the torrent of erroneous data could dangerously undermine efforts to curb the virus, whose death toll in the United States increased to 150,000 on Wednesday, worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University 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. And the death toll in South Carolina has surpassed 1,500 this week, more than double in the following 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 truth: last month, federal regulators 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 it were effective, it would not 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 through medical experts. She has made even more statements in the past, saying that cysts, fibroids and sure that other situations can be caused through sex with demons, that McDonald’s and Pokémon announce witchcraft, that extraterrestrial DNA is used in medical remedies, and that the human part is “reptile”. 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. A folk tale argued that Microsoft founder Bill Gates planned to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips in the world’s 7 billion human beings.
Then there are the political theories: that doctors, hounds, and the federal government conspire to lie about the risk of the virus of politically damaging Trump.
Social media amplified demands and helped believers locate each other. The avalanche of incorrect information posed a challenge for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, who were accused of censorship for getting rid of incorrect virus information.
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 was “not appropriate” to broadcast it.
This week, U.S. government officials They talked about the condition of anonymity 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 consider it 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 AP/NORC vote found that 3 out of four Americans, Democrats and Republicans, have a national mask 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. A video of a woman attacking a mask on an Arizona target has won nearly 84,000 likes on Twitter.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the medical government itself caused a great deal of confusion about the masks. 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 at first is confusing,” he said.
Many claims about masks claim to have destructive effects, such as blocked oxygen or even a superior threat of infection. Doctors broadly rejected the claims.
Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail of Ireland grew so concerned about mask misinformation he posted an online video of himself comfortably wearing a mask while measuring his oxygen levels. The video has been viewed more than 20 million times.
“Although the face mask does not your oxygen levels. COVID is doing it for the better,” he warned.
However, trusted medical governments are rejected by those who say that forcing others to wear masks is a step toward authoritarianism.
“Unless he takes a position, he’ll wear a mask for the rest of his life,” tweeted Simon Dolan, a British businessman who sued the United States for its COVID-19 restrictions.
Trump’s reluctant, ambivalent and belated adoption of the mask has not convinced some of his most staunch collaborators, who have invented increasingly elaborate theories for his change. Some say he actually spoke in code and doesn’t literally help the mask.
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.