Infodemic in the Global Coronavirus Crisis
subject: health communication, communication, Information literacy, Health System, Information dissemination, online social networking, coronavirus disease (covid-19)
description: In December 26, 2019, 4 unusual cases of pneumonia were recorded in China, three of those were from the same family. Another 3 cases of pneumonia were found in the same hospital in December 28 and 29(1). The virus started to expand rapidly so that doctors in Wuhan Hospital reported the phenomenon to China’s CDC and WHO. The research articles began to publish online from the first of January. The Coronavirus news spread out as quickly as the virus. The virus was named new coronavirus 2019 (nCoV 2019). In January 7, 2020 the disease caused by the virus was identified as CoVID 19 (1). The altmetrics database indicates the first mentions to the peer reviewed articles about coronavirus has been tracked in social media like Twitter and Facebook since January 16,2020. The majority of mentions aggregated from the public profiles. The scientists, practitioners (like doctors) and science communicators (like journalists) were the other group of people who mentioned the scientific articles. This could be a dangerous sign for risk communication, at the same time. The public are the main group who follow the news and information on the social media but not all of the public know how to distinguish misinformation from the truth. In January 30, the coronavirus was identified as a global health threat requiring collaboration of all countries (2). In February, the virus spread out of the China and immediately became the headline of news media. In Mach 8,2020 the China health department claimed that the outbreak has been controlled and Wuhan closed makeshift hospitals(4,5) but the disease surges in Iran. The first cases of coronavirus were formally reported in 19 February 2020 in Qum city of Iran (3). At the moment, the highest rank of mortality caused by the pandemic relates to Italy, Iran, and South Korea (6). People surf the web and social media impatiently for information on cause, transmission, control and prevention of coronavirus disease (CoViD 19). They often use and re-publis…
creator: Vahideh Zareh Gavgani
source: Taṣvīr-i salāmat
publisher: Tabriz University of Medical Sciences
date: 2020
coverage: Medicine (General)