“In this report, Avaaz uncovers global health misinformation spreading networks on Facebook that reached an estimated 3.8 billion views in the last year spanning at least five countries — the United States, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy. Many of these networks, made up of both websites and Facebook pages, have spread vaccination and health… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Medicine
As pandemic rages, Facebook distributes dangerous health misinformation on a massive scale
Popular Info: “Facebook talks a lot about its efforts to “keep people safe and informed about the coronavirus.” According to the company, it is “connecting people to credible information,” “combating COVID-19 misinformation,” and “supporting fact-checkers…So that’s what Facebook says. But how successful has the company been at combating misinformation about COVID and other health issues?… Continue Reading
Public assessments of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak
“Three-quarters of Americans say that “not enough people following social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines” is a major reason the coronavirus outbreak has continued in the United States – the most commonly cited major reason among the six asked about in the Pew survey. Roughly six-in-ten (58%) also say a major reason for the continued spread… Continue Reading
U.S. was ‘unprepared’ for ‘greatest public health crisis’ in a century
Washington Post – “Years of underinvestment in public health infrastructure left the United States “unprepared” for the coronavirus pandemic — the country’s greatest public health crisis in 100 years — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said during an interview with WebMD on Wednesday. At least 163,000 people in the U.S. have… Continue Reading
COVID-19 Global Response Index
From FP Analytics: A country-by-country assessment of government responses to the pandemic. As governments around the world continue to grapple with the pandemic, FP Analytics has developed the COVID-19 Global Response Index to track countries’ responses to the novel coronavirus according to key metrics. While country rankings have been published by other organizations and publications,… Continue Reading
How the pandemic might play out in 2021 and beyond
Nature – This coronavirus is here for the long haul – here’s what scientists predict for the next months and years. “…It is clear now that summer does not uniformly stop the virus, but warm weather might make it easier to contain in temperate regions. In areas that will get colder in the second half… Continue Reading
Journalists’ guide to COVID data
RTDNA: “Watch a press conference, turn on a newscast, or overhear just about any phone conversation these days and you’ll hear mayors discussing R values, reporters announcing new fatalities and separated families comparing COVID case rolling averages in their counties. As coronavirus resurges across the country, medical data is no longer just the purview of… Continue Reading
How Did I Catch the Coronavirus?
The New Yorker – “For the majority of the nearly five million COVID-19 cases across the United States, the point of infection is unknown. “We don’t know how their exposure occurred or what kind of environment they were in when it happened,” Crystal Watson, an expert on contact tracing at the Johns Hopkins Center for… Continue Reading
The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away
The Atlantic – No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world. “The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sickened more than 16.5 million people across six continents. It is raging in countries that never contained the virus. It is resurging in many of the ones that did. If there was… Continue Reading
World’s Biggest Landlord Buys World’s Biggest Genealogy Website
Gizmodo: “The Blackstone Group will buy a majority stake in the genealogy website Ancestry.com in a deal worth $4.7 billion, according to a press release published Wednesday. Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, is the world’s largest landlord and Ancestry is the world’s largest genealogy website, with over 6 billion records on family history in… Continue Reading
Coronavirus Brings American Decline Out in the Open
Bloomberg Opinion – Noah Smith: Without fixes for infrastructure, education, health care and government, the U.S. will resemble a developing nation in a few decades. “The U.S.’s decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered… Continue Reading
Humans are notoriously bad at assessing their risk. In a pandemic, that’s a problem
San Francisco Chronicle: “In the first few weeks of the pandemic, the familiar options of everyday life narrowed to almost nothing. The Bay Area largely hunkered down and stayed home while the coronavirus numbers climbed. Decisions had been made for us: School and work were closed, travel and socializing designated unsafe by health officials. The… Continue Reading
