Study Shows Donald Trump is the World’s Biggest Driver of COVID-19 Misinformation

By
Zhi Hao
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During US President Donald Trump’s April 24 press conference, he spoke of the possibility of curing COVID-19 using disinfectants inside the body.

And now that he has contracted the pathogen himself, we can’t help but wonder whether he’s keen on proving his ‘sarcastic’ theory correct…

Or whether he will just give up on the whole ‘miracle cure’ aspect and admit that it was just misinformation at best.

Because apparently, according to a study…

His theories aren’t so much of actual legitimate fact-based information as he would like to think.

But the worst part? He’s influencing others to do the same.

Study Shows Donald Trump is the World’s Biggest Driver of COVID-19 Misinformation

According to The Straits Times, a study by Cornell University discovered that Donald Trump, the current US President, has actually been the world’s biggest driver of Covid-19 information amidst the pandemic.

So yeah, basically, he has been spreading a lot of fake news.

Between 1 January and 26 May of this year, a team from the Cornell Alliance for Science went through a whopping 38 million articles published by English-language, conventional media worldwide.

Information from countries such as the United States, Britain, India, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other African and Asian nations were used for the study.

And what they found was nothing short of staggering, though it’s to a certain extent somewhat predictable too.

Out of the 38 million articles, 522,472 of them were identified as a form of “infodemic”, the World Health Organisation’s term for articles that reproduced or increased misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic.

They were then grouped into 11 main sub-topics, with the most popular one thus far proving to be the study of “miracle cures”, which appeared in 295,351 articles.

And apparently, President Trump was a real driving cause behind the “miracle cures” topic, with his 24 April press briefing driving major spikes for the subject.

During the briefing, he had deliberated the notion of using disinfectants inside the body to heal the coronavirus.

And though he claimed that it was a sarcastic remark, his response only appeared to advance the possibility of the theory.

And similarly, search results elevated when he promoted untested treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine.

As such, Trump was deemed to be the world’s biggest driver of Covid-19 information amidst the pandemic.

“We conclude therefore that the president of the United States was likely the largest driver of the Covid-19 misinformation ‘infodemic’,” the team wrote.

Which is certainly a concerning notion.

“If people are misled by unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the disease,” said Sarah Evanega, director of the Cornell Alliance for Science and the one who led the study. “They may be less likely to observe official guidance and thus risk spreading the virus.”

And considering how it’s an actual US President who’s making such “unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the disease”…

Well, you get the gist.

Other Claims

Interestingly, the other misinformation topics are no less ‘ludicrous’ in a sense.

According to the study, the second-most prevalent topic was that the pandemic was generated to advance a “new world order”.

The third was that the COVID-19 was a hoax for political gain by the US Democratic Party.

This is followed by conspiracies that allege the virus to be a lab-produced bioweapon.

Philanthropist Bill Gates was also linked to the virus, with 5G phone networks and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories also prevalent on the net.

To end off, some theorised that the virus is some form of population control, while others attacked US government scientist Fauci, referenced the “Plandemic” video and blamed Chinese people for consuming bat soup.

However, the study’s authors also discovered the presence of fact-checking articles, which purportedly appeared 183,717 times during the analysed period.

It should be noted, though, that the research was partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Not that I’m insinuating anything by the way.

But theorists would certainly make something of it.

Trump Has Gone Ahead With An Untested Medicine

According to Yahoo News, President Trump was given an antibody cocktail before being taken to hospital on Friday (2 October 2020), after he reportedly faced symptoms of Covid-19.

The medicine is an experimental therapy that utilises two or more lab-engineered antibodies that purportedly cut down levels of the coronavirus and improve a patient’s symptoms.

It’s produced by US biotechnology company Regeneron, and despite promising trial results, has not received any form of regulatory approval at that point in time.

However, it’s believed by many experts to be the best hope of converting the potent virus into a treatable one.

But one thing’s clear though.

It was not exactly disinfectant.

With that said, let’s all stay vigilant and alert amidst this time of crisis.

After all, it’s tough enough without these sources of… misinformation.

Read Also: Everything About the Confirmed COVID-19 Infections of Donald Trump & His Wife

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Zhi Hao
Email: [email protected]