Coronavirus misinformation and disinformation rife among Americans

By Dr. Liji Thomas, MDApr 14 2020

A new poll carried out by the Pew Research Center from March 10 to March 16, 2020, shows that almost 1 in 3 Americans think the novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), that causes the current COVID-19 pandemic is the product of biological research. Despite the utter lack of evidence, the claim has found fertile breeding grounds on the Internet. It serves as an apt example of the spread of dubious or patently false information about the pandemic.

Coronavirus 2019-nCov novel coronavirus illustration: Image Credit: Creativeneko / Shutterstock

Where did the virus emerge?

All current knowledge points to the emergence of the virus from a member of the bat species, even though the very first case (Patient Zero) is yet to be identified, and though the manner in which the bat virus jumped across species barriers to infect humans is unknown.

Chinese researchers published an article in the journal Nature in early February 2020, which reported that the genome of the novel coronavirus is identical to that of a bat coronavirus. Genetic tracing shows that the virus came from a single source, which mutated to the eight strains circulating today.

Where do people say it came from?

The Pew poll results show that almost 23% of Americans say the virus is a deliberate laboratory creation, while another 7% think it was an inadvertent but nonetheless manmade creation. The difference in gullibility is obvious when the respondents are classified by age: the "manmade virus" theory is held by only a fifth of those aged 65 years or older, but by 35% of those aged 18 to 29 years.

Again, differences exist across the educational divide: 35% of those who think the virus came from a lab has at least a high school diploma, but only a fifth of people who have studied up to the level of a bachelor's degree, at least. Blacks and Hispanics are also more likely to believe this theory, at about 34% and 40%, respectively, compared to a fifth of whites.

The chief 'support' for this hypothesis is that the Chinese city of Wuhan contains not only the level IV biosafety laboratory called the Wuhan Institute of Virology but also, in close proximity, the wet seafood market where the virus was initially claimed to have emerged in humans.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton lent credibility to the idea of a conspiracy on January 30, 2020. This allowed it to spread in the mainstream, despite his later clarification that natural spread is likely. He does not exclude the possibility of it being a bioweapon, though he also says it could have escaped from the laboratory.

It is worth noting that some scientists debate the 'wet market' origin. An article in The Lancet reveals that the first patient in whom COVID-19 was confirmed, as well as another one-third of the first 40 cases, did not have any history of contact with the wet market. Despite this, most experts today do not commit themselves to the theory of laboratory origin of the coronavirus.

Fighting misinformation

It is notable that in an age of scientific advancement, conspiracy theories and superstitious fear of modern gadgets are taking over the minds of more and more people. An 'infodemic', as the World Health Organization (WHO) terms this flood of false news, is taking the world by storm.

Apart from the "virus-created-in-Chinese-lab" hypothesis, more and more people now believe that the 5G networks cause the virus to spread in some mysterious way. Some 5G cellular towers have even been destroyed as a result, which only harms the economy further, besides hampering communication between health workers and the community, as well as between isolated people and their families or caregivers.

To counter this, social media like Twitter and Whatsapp are tightening their control of what content goes online. Whatsapp, the social media giant, owned by Facebook, has put a ceiling on how many times a message can be forwarded to a user. If the same user is part of multiple groups, this will prevent the message from reaching a large number of groups simultaneously.

Over and above this, buffer messages are shown above search pages warning of misinformation being spread by some users of social media. Will these measures keep the infodemic at bay? It seems unlikely, given the modern tendency to distrust anything that runs counter to one's own thinking, no matter how reliable the source. Unless people learn to think, observe, and assimilate information, all the social messaging and education in the world will have little effect on public health or the pandemic.

What is the cost of misinformation?

When people believe the coronavirus doesn't exist, but the illness is because of 5G radiation, they won't take precautions against it. This will result in a second and third wave of infections racking already suffering countries, possibly wrecking the economy irreparably. Such conspiracy theories and misinformation only distract people and make them stop paying attention to social distancing and personal hygienic practices.

The flood of false theories about the origin of the virus takes up precious administrative time and effort to counter them. They also create fear, as well as anti-racial and nationalistic jingoism that hinders scientific collaboration at a time when it couldn't be more critical. Their promoters are responsible for the high toll they will eventually exact in terms of human suffering by promoting the spread of the virus.