COVID -19- Infodemic overtaking Pandemic? Time to disseminate facts over fear
Open accessAbstract
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a humanitarian emergency. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Governments are making their best efforts to prevent the spread of disease. But a global epidemic of misinformation which is rapidly spreading through social media platforms and other outlets is posing serious problem to the public health interventions. This rapid spread of all sorts of information pertaining to the epidemic which makes its solution difficult is termed as infodemic. Infodemic creates fear, confusion and stigmatization among people and makes them more vulnerable to practice the measures which are not evidence based and scientifically sound. Hence there is an urgent need to identify the source of misinformation and prevent them from further spreading. WHO and the government of India have taken several steps in controlling this problem but there is a need for active involvement of social media companies, professional bodies, health care providers and general public in identification of misinformation and combating its spread.
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Social media platforms have become breeding grounds for distorted thinking, leading to panic, confusion, racism, and threat perception of an unrealistic intensity.
“These platforms have become breeding grounds for distorted thinking, leading to panic, confusion, racism, and threat perception of an unrealistic intensity (Kulkarni et al., 2020).”
From Understanding coronaphobia (2020) · cites this paper as Kulkarni et al., 2020
The concept of Infodemic (p. 2) says social media can amplify misinformation and misconceptions, and Consequences of infodemic (p. 3) says an infodemic causes fear, panic and confusion. The Abstract (p. 1) also mentions stigmatization, but the copy does not specifically link social media to racism or describe threat perception as unrealistically intense. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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References 7 · Cited by 35
Research works printed but not linked: 5
- [1]1. Wang C, Horby PW, Hayden FG, Gao GF. A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern. Lancet 2020;395:470 3.
- [2]2. Ryu S, Chun BC; Korean Society of Epidemiology 2019 nCoV Task Force Team. An interim review of the epidemiological characteristics of 2019 novel coronavirus. Epidemiol Health 2020;42:e2020006.
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- Authors
- Kulkarni, P., Prabhu, S., Kumar, S., & Ramraj, B.
- Affiliations
- JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (IN)
- Father Muller Medical College Hospital (IN)
- SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre (IN)
- Venue
- Indian Journal of Community Health
- Published
- 2020-04-20
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2 (Supp)
- Pages
- 264-268
- ISSN
- 0971-7587 (ISSN-L)
- 2248-9509
- OpenAlex
- W3090973942
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 9.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Indian Journal of Community Health (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Indian Journal of Community Health (Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, infodemic, misinformation, social media, public health communication, stigma, evidence-based interventions, misinformation detection, World Health Organization, India
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