COVID -19- Infodemic overtaking Pandemic? Time to disseminate facts over fear

Abstract

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a humanitarian emergency. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Governments are making their best efforts to prevent the spread of disease. But a global epidemic of misinformation which is rapidly spreading through social media platforms and other outlets is posing serious problem to the public health interventions. This rapid spread of all sorts of information pertaining to the epidemic which makes its solution difficult is termed as infodemic. Infodemic creates fear, confusion and stigmatization among people and makes them more vulnerable to practice the measures which are not evidence based and scientifically sound. Hence there is an urgent need to identify the source of misinformation and prevent them from further spreading. WHO and the government of India have taken several steps in controlling this problem but there is a need for active involvement of social media companies, professional bodies, health care providers and general public in identification of misinformation and combating its spread.

Perceptions and effects of COVID-19 related information in Denmark and Sweden – a web-based survey about COVID-19 and social media

“…This, together with trust or lack thereof in the authorities' strategies, may hence also affect how people choose or not to socialise with consideration taken to authoritative socialisation advice. As implied by the COVID-19 'infodemic', citizens can be faced with information overload (Ahmed 2020; Gallotti et al 2020;Kulkarni et al 2020), encompassing accurate and timely information (O'Brien et al 2020), but also what those behind the dominant medicopolitical discourse would classify as dis-and misinformation (Depoux et al 2020;Hollowood and Mostrous 2020). The rapid spread of information through social media certainly contributes to this phenomenon, and may cause confusion and panic in some people (de Vries et al, 2018;Depoux et al, 2020).…”

Intention to Take COVID-19 Vaccine as a Precondition for International Travel: Application of Extended Norm-Activation Model

“…In a recent study by Radic et al [37] on intention of female passengers to dine on board cruise ships in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was negatively affected by the mass media coverage. Mass media coverage can affect the perception of audience awareness and behavior [38] and the full strength of mass media coverage influence on audience behavior is evident in the current COVID-19 pandemic [39][40][41].…”

Notícias falsas em tempos de pandemia pelo novo coronavírus: uma análise documental

“…Em relação às suas características, as fake news geralmente demonstram sinais. A importância em reconhecer o perfil comum às notícias falsas foi discutido por um estudo realizado na Índia, com 758 profissionais da saúde, dos quais 50% afirmaram ter dificuldade em diferenciar as notícias falsas das verdadeiras e 33% afirmaram que as desinformações interferem na sua tomada de decisão 14 .…”