JAKARTA - Stopping the spread of fake news about the corona virus or COVID-19 can help save lives over the outbreak. These are the results of an analysis by scientists at East Anglia University (UEA) in England about how the spread of misinformation affects the spread of disease.
"When it comes to COVID-19, there is a lot of speculation, misinformation and fake news circulating on the internet - about how the virus originated, what causes it and how it spreads," said UAE pharmacy professor Paul Hunter, who also led the study. , launched Reuters.
"Misinformation that circulates quickly will become very bad, so it can change human behavior in taking big risks," he added.
Because, for him, fake news is made without respect for accuracy, and is often based on conspiracy theories.
Hunter said their research focuses on three other infectious diseases - flu, monkeypox and norovirus - but their analysis could be useful in dealing with the coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak.
For this study, the researchers created theoretical simulations of outbreaks of norovirus, flu and monkeypox.
From here, they examined real-life behavioral studies, how various diseases spread, incubation and recovery times, and the speed and frequency of social media posts and when that information is shared in real life.
They also calculated how low the trust of a number of people in the relevant authorities and prefer conspiracy.
Hunter added that the most worrying thing is the tendency of people to share bad information on social media rather than good information from trusted sources.
In addition, the researchers found that a 10 percent reduction in the number of malicious suggestions on the internet had alleviated the impact of the severity of the outbreak, while keeping 20 percent of the population unable to share false recommendations had the same positive impact.
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