How experts are fighting the Coronavirus 'infodemic'

Are you stocking up on hand soap or garlic?

Both have been named on the internet as potential guards against the outbreak of Coronavirus, or COVID-19, but only one is effective. And it’s this rapid spread of misinformation that’s front of mind for the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic,” he says.

With fake news and the spread of misinformation one of the defining issues of our time, incorrect, misleading or false medical advice can travel around the world before anyone has a chance to correct it. So how big is the problem? And what can be done other than monitoring social media?

Around 2 million tweets containing conspiracy theories about the coronavirus were published over a three-week period in January and February, according to a report in the Washington Post that cited an unpublished report from the US Global Engagement Center.

“The difference now with social media is that this phenomenon is amplified,” says Sylvie Briand, Director of Infectious Hazards Management at the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme. “You need to be faster if you want to fill the void. What is at stake during an outbreak is making sure people will do the right thing to control the disease or to mitigate its impact.”

Briand and her colleagues at the WHO are fighting against this tide – closely monitoring for misinformation and counteracting it with facts and their own myth-busting page.

Google has created an SOS Alert on COVID-19 for the six official UN languages, and is expanding in other languages to make sure the first information the public receives is from the WHO website and the social media accounts of the WHO and Dr. Tedros. Facebook says it’s banning ads featuring cures for the virus.

“Fighting infodemics and misinformation is a joint effort,” says Aleksandra Kuzmanovic, social media manager with the WHO's department of communications. “In my role, I am in touch with Facebook, Twitter, Tencent, Pinterest, TikTok, and also my colleagues in the China office. When we see some questions or rumours spreading, we write it down, we go back to our risk communications colleagues and then they help us find evidence-based answers.”

On TikTok, the World Economic Forum’s feed offers short video content aimed at dispelling some myths and putting out straightforward facts.

Even so, the battle against fake news is likely to last as long as the virus. And mainstream news outlets and news websites are also fanning the flames of panic, according to Carlos Navarro Colorado, head of Public Health Emergencies at UNICEF.

“Often, they pick the most extreme pictures they can find,” Navarro said. “There is overkill on the use of [personal protective equipment] and that tends to be the photos that are published everywhere, in all major newspapers and TV. That is, in fact, sending the wrong message.”