Washington Post – “…Snopes, which delves into everything from bizarre urban legends to intricate government policies, has been overwhelmed with so many covid-19-related questions that the website can’t keep up. The company has done something that seems counterintuitive: It has scaled back operations by publishing fewer stories. There have been no furloughs or layoffs; but Snopes is encouraging employees, whose lives have been turned upside down by the pandemic, to take time off if needed. It’s a predicament other fact-checkers and journalists are facing: As the novel coronavirus has swept the globe, so has misinformation about the virus. The World Health Organization has referred to the abundance of articles, commentary and social media postings about this one topic — some accurate, some not — as an “infodemic” which “makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.”…Compared with other big news stories, this pandemic presents a particularly difficult challenge for professional fact-checkers. The multi-headed crisis has its roots in what is essentially a science and medical story, requiring many journalists, not just health reporters, to quickly get up to speed. Covid-19 remains a mystery even to many of the professional scientists who could explain it to a reporter….”