Mission to Mitigate: The Covid-19 'Infodemic'

For the last few years since the incredibly difficult year of 2020, the world has had the difficult task of recovering after Covid-19. Whilst it is factual that Covid-19 stemmed from the city of Wuhan in China, there was a fair few misinformed posts circulating around social media about how the virus was created and why it was created. This was not the only time were misinformation was spread during the Covid-19 era. When a vaccine was created very quickly a lot of misinformation was spread about the effects of the vaccine and what it actually was and would do.

Covid-19 was a new strain of virus that hadn’t been experienced before so as the public were learning all about the virus and how to protect themselves, governments and officials as well as health organisations were also learning whilst trying to produce accurate information and helpful guidance to protect the public from this virus. Due to this being something new that hadn’t been dealt with before it did create a massive opportunity for false information to be spread as from the virus spreading, being identified and then pushing governments around the world to take drastic action due to its harmful nature – it all happened pretty quickly meaning there was no time to be able to have all of the necessary information gathered and released before people began to speculate.

Where the virus came from and how it was created allowed for misinformed posts being spread around social media. The exact geographical location of the virus had been sourced as Wuhan in China but how it actually came about was not as quickly identified. Some of the misleading posts about how the virus had came to life included ideas such as a lab in the city had created and accidentally leaked the virus as a way of potentially killing off some of China’s population as it continues to rise rapidly as well as killing off a large sum of the world’s population for China’s gain. There was also posts stating that Covid-19 came from the Chinese population consuming bats as a source of food and that bats were the carriers of this virus. Other related misinformed posts suggested that the virus came from consuming other animals that may not typically be consumed or thought of being a meal here in the UK. The virus did in fact spread from an animal to a human that was purchased at a seafood market in Wuhan. Whilst the species was still to be identified, many used their speculations which others reading the posts believed to be the actual source of the virus.

The biggest source of misinformed posts from the pandemic came from the creation and roll out of a Covid-19 vaccine. Less than a year after the virus was identified in December 2019, a vaccine to help prevent people from becoming too sick and potentially dying had been created. As other vaccines and cures do take a bit longer to develop and perfect, the fact that in less than a year a vaccine that was successful was developed and injected into its first patient was quite a shock to many. False information started spreading which did have an impact on people’s belief in the effectiveness of the vaccine and ultimately their decision to get it. False information such as the vaccine actually gives you Covid-19 to build immunity was spread. People claimed that the vaccine will affect the fertility of women severely reducing their chances of conceiving. There was also claims that the government were using the vaccine as a scapegoat to insert microchips into the public’s arms to control them was spread widely which could have been a result of the lack of freedoms the people had during the peak of the pandemic.

These misinformed posts could also be considered as disinformation as the intent behind it can be perceived to be harm. False information was rife during the pandemic and led for a call for action as many now agree that these posts are so harmful to the public especially in terms of their health as a vaccine that was created to help the people’s health was subjected (and in some cases successfully) to harmful and false perceptions.