While the rest of the world is seeing a relative lull in new cases and a dip in the active COVID-19 cases, the United States continues to fight a grim battle – nearly a year after vaccinations began. And the anti-vaxxers are not letting up, even now.
People tend to engage more with misinformation than factual information. The reason: misinformation promises quick-fixes, a quicker road to recovery and a false promise of complete cure.
There is a sizeable section that peddles misinformation, mis-attributes natural calamities to everything but climate change, and spreads canards about menstruating and jeans-wearing women as being the cause of disasters.
It might compel people to believe that there is no pandemic, and that we are being lied to about the virus. And this, in turn, might make them lower their guard – and indulge in COVID-inappropriate behaviour.
People fail to distinguish between information and misinformation, make sure to pay attention to the message quality.
Get vaccinated at the first opportunity you get. And yes, ignore every opinion that tells you not to.
What drives the misinformation ecosystem is the lack of knowledge, fuelled by fear. If you believed what you read and watch on social media about vaccines – you will never take a vaccine, ever.
Videos making false and misleading claims about masks are getting wide popularity in India. While one video claims that wearing masks is dangerous, others promote ‘herbal masks’ to purify the air we breathe in. All these claims are false.
A video is getting viral on Facebook, Whatsapp, Youtube claiming that COVID-19 is the biggest scandal in the history of mankind. But all the claims are false.
A video in the Tamil language claims that if someone has had measles infection in his lifetime, he will never be infected with the novel coronavirus. The claim is false.
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