Infodemic in the Global Coronavirus Crisis
health communication, communication, Information literacy, Health System, Information dissemination, online social networking, coronavirus disease (covid-19)
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-publish the information they find online before recognizing their trustworthiness and the evidence behind them. The open access and democratic nature of health communication in social media and the Internet provide opportunity for distribution of myths and truths about coronavirus. Distribution of misinformation among public, damages public health and creates distrust to authorized sources of information. Therefore, misinformation epidemic is more dangerous than the crises. Goffman in 1964 (13) and then Eysenbach recognized and introduced the prevalence of misinformation epidemic through online health information seeking in 2002 (7). He found that most of health information that disseminate during epidemic in social media and internet disagree the evidence (8,9). He called the methods of identifying, studying and management of misinformation as infodemiology. Infodemiology progresses in crises, specially the public health crises, in which abundant of misinformation becomes accessible for public and creates complexity instead of solving the problem. WHO director in the Munich Security Conference held in 15 February doubted about distribution of misinformation about the epidemic of coronavirus and called it the infodemic by declaring that we are not fighting an epidemic, we are fighting infodemic and this requires global collaboration (10,11). In crises, public informing of the methods of evaluation of information resources is not a right strategy for tackling with dissemination of misinformation. Novel strategies are needed to tackle with new infodemic crises and to assure that right information disseminated from the trusted sources to people at the right time. We also need to guarantee that people take the right action by receiving the right information in coronavirus epidemic. Hence, the WHO’s Risk Communication Team launched a new information platform called WHO Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN) (2). One of the methods that this team follows is identifying misinformation in social media, searching and finding related scientific evidence with them from sources such as scientific papers and publishing them on EPIWIN website to provide accurate information for information hunger of the people. Today, infodemic crises have become one of the priorities of health decision making authorities in the world. We also warn our society about misinformation distributed among public in the form of news, recommendation and guidelines about coronavirus. Misinformation caused more than 27 deaths by direct consumption of alcohol and detergents to avoid the risk of coronavirus in Iran (12). Recommending use of some foods, drugs and plants without scientific evidence increases rapidly among people. Some of these products like Descurainia sophia, garlic, cinnamon, nigella seeds, wild rue seeds have no evidence and some like Vitamin D have been proved to be effective by the evidence but are misinformed and distorted. These are just examples of misinformation epidemic on coronavirus 2019 pneumonic. Still there are further issues to discuss and to study about the psychological adverse effects. The spread of misinformation about coronavirus has political, industrial, economical and health related aspects which require specific strategies for treatment. It is required that a team is formed in Iran for tracking, controlling and managing the contamination of information to assess information evidence.
Infodemiological Study Using Google Trends on Coronavirus Epidemic in Wuhan, China
coronavirus, Google trends, Infodemiology, COVID-19, SARS, MERS
The recent emergence of a new coronavirus (COVID-19) has gained a high cover in public media and worldwide news. The virus has caused a viral pneumonia in tens of thousands of people in Wuhan, a central city of China. This short paper gives a brief introduction on how the demand for information on this new epidemic is reported through Google Trends. The reported period is 31 December 2020 to 20 March 2020. The authors draw conclusions on current infodemiological data on COVID-19 using three main search keywords: coronavirus, SARS and MERS. Two approaches are set. First is the worldwide perspective, second – the Chinese one, which reveals that in China this disease in the first days was more often referred to SARS then to general coronaviruses, whereas worldwide, since the beginning, it is more often referred to coronaviruses.
International Journal of Online and Biomedical Engineering
Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Información preliminar de la ecología, dendrología y distribución geográfica de las especies del genero Polylepis en el Perú
Rafael Lao Magin, Percy Zevallos Pollito, Horacio de la Cruz Silva
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/espacioydesarrollo/article/view/7882
Geography (General), Geography. Anthropology. Recreation
Información preliminar de las características virológicas del nuevo coronavirus SARS-CoV-2
novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, coronavirus 2019-ncov
En diciembre de 2019 surgió en China un nuevo coronavirus, conocido como SARS-CoV-2 y causante de la enfermedad COVID-19. En pocas semanas se extendió por numerosos países. El objetivo de esta revisión es describir las características de este nuevo agente. Los coronavirus engloban a un grupo de virus en el que existen algunos que infectan a humanos, y de éstos los más importantes hasta la fecha han sido el SARS-CoV que apareció a comienzo de este siglo en China y el MERS-CoV que surgió en Arabia en 2012. SARS-CoV-2 empezó a propagarse en un mercado de la ciudad de Wuhan (China) donde se vendían pescados, mariscos y diferentes animales vivos. Presenta un ritmo reproductivo elevado y los estudios apuntan a que el reservorio primario son los murciélagos. El hospedador intermediario sigue siendo una incógnita, lo cual impide que se pueda establecer la ruta exacta a partir de la cual habría pasado a infectar al ser humano. La enfermedad COVID-19 se caracteriza por tos, fiebre y disnea, con una sintomatología leve en la mayoría de los casos, y por afectar a adultos principalmente. Los cuadros más graves se han registrado en pacientes mayores de 60 años y/o con comorbilidades asociadas. La letalidad de COVID-19 informada inicialmente pareció ser menor al 5%. No obstante, la letalidad puede variar dependiendo de las características de la población. El nuevo virus se difunde persona-persona por vía aérea principalmente y existe posibilidad de transmisión asintomática. El período de incubación estimado varía entre 2 y 14 días. El diagnóstico de laboratorio se basas en la RT-PCR a tiempo real que se realiza en muestras respiratorias. Las medidas terapéuticas son básicamente de soporte ya que de momento ningún tratamiento farmacológico ha resultado definitivamente eficaz.
Dirección General de Salud Pública. Consejería de Sanidad. Comunidad de Madrid
Información, ecología y calidad de vida.
Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información
http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/DCIN/article/view/21262
Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
Information and Communication Technologies in Foreign Language Teaching in Multinational Higher Education Environment of Mining Region
Sustainable development of a coal mining region such as Kuzbass to a large extent depends on the high-level education of specialists provided by higher education establishments of the region. The article focuses on information and communication technologies (ICT) as an integral part of educational process at a tertiary education level that are reforming and advancing it towards the innovative rank satisfying the demands of the mining region industry. The current situation of forced distance learning because of coronavirus epidemics in the world made it necessary to look at ICT not as a supportive tool of an educator but as a meaningful agent of pedagogical interaction. The analysis of ICT function in higher education allows defining ICT as a subject of pedagogical interaction. Some of e-learning resources and applications are analyzed from the point of view of their capability and efficiency to conduct foreign language distance teaching, in particular in multinational student groups of Kemerovo State University.
Islamov Roman, Greenwald Oksana, Tunyova Nina
Information and Communication Technology in Agriculture: Data use in control and production
Agricultura, Informação, dados, tecnologia de informação e comunicação
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has provided access to data and information, especially with the advent of the Internet, and this led to changes in society. In this context, this paper aims to demonstrate how data can assist agriculture in control of production, using the data available in government databases. Therefore, we carried out a literature search about the subject and made a data collection on government databases. The completion of the crossing of data using the computation model of artificial neural networks showed that data can aid in the prediction of agricultural production.
Beatriz Santos Bisi, Cristina Toyoko Hashimoto
Revista Eletrônica Competências Digitais para Agricultura Familiar
Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho
http://codaf.tupa.unesp.br:8082/index.php/recodaf/article/view/30
INFORMATION FOR MENUS PLANNING AND PREPARATION CONTAINED IN BIDDING DOCUMENTS FOR UNIVERSITY RESTAURANTS OF FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
Restaurantes, proposta de concorrênciaserviço de alimentação. restaurantes. proposta de concorrência, serviço de alimentação
Objetivo: Avaliar as informações para planejamento e elaboração de cardápios contidas nos editais de licitação dos restaurantes universitários de universidades federais do Sul do Brasil. Métodos: Estudo transversal com avaliação das informações contidas em editais de licitação, sobre o planejamento e a elaboração de cardápios de 35 Restaurantes Universitários das universidades federais do Sul do país, vigentes em 2015. Resultados: Em relação às informações per capita e de frequência, 34,3% dos editais contiveram informações para a realização de um planejamento adequado no que se refere à elaboração de cardápios; mais da metade dos editais não apresentou informações sobre aplicação de procedimentos técnicos apropriados de pré-preparo e preparo dos alimentos (54,29%); a maioria dos editais não manifestou informações de incentivo à aquisição de produtos da Agricultura Familiar (85,71%); nenhum edital exigiu obrigatoriedade da presença de Ficha Técnica de Preparo; mais da metade dos editais não contemplou cardápios para necessidades alimentares especiais (57,14%); menos da metade dos editais determinou que o planejamento de cardápios respeitasse a cultura e o hábito alimentar local dos usuários (45,71%). Foram verificadas diferenças significativas entre os estados da Região Sul do Brasil quanto às pontuações obtidas por meio do levantamento das informações sobre planejamento e elaboração de cardápios contidas nos editais de licitação das instituições de ensino superior. Conclusão: Verificou-se que os editais de licitação para contratação de empresas que forneçam e/ou produzam refeições aos acadêmicos, necessitam de melhor elaboração, abordando claramente itens básicos para um planejamento adequado dos cardápios. DOI: 10.12957/demetra.2018.32140
Samara Cavaler, Maiara Heilman, Ana Paula Santos, Helder Ferreira, Elis Fatel
https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/demetra/article/view/32140
Agriculture (General), Public aspects of medicine
Information Seeking on Covid-19 Pandemic: Care Providers’ Experience at the University of Gondar Teaching Hospital, Northwest of Ethiopia
covid-19, Ethiopia, Pandemic, Information seeking
Mulugeta Hayelom Kalayou,1 Binyam Tilahun,1 Berhanu Fikadie Endehabtu,1 Fedlu Nurhussien,2 Tesfahun Melese,1 Habtamu Alganeh Guadie1 1Department of Health Informatics, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia; 2Computer Science Department, University of Gondar, Gondar, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Mulugeta Hayelom KalayouDepartment of Health Informatics, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, EthiopiaTel +251 919047069Email Mhayelom5@gmail.comBackground: During the pandemic, information is inevitable and important, and having knowledge on pertinent information is very crucial for health-care professionals in order to deliver sustainable and quality health services to their clients, and to combat the virus. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the health-care providers’ information seeking behavior on COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study had conducted among 291 respondents. The participant’s characteristics were presented using frequency and percentage. The association between the independent and dependent variables was explained using chi-squared test.Results: Out of the 291 respondents, 207 (71.1%) of them had sought information on COVID-19 pandemic. The association between the gender and educational status with the outcome variable was found insignificant. Age (χ2=10.6, P=0.011), respondent’s working unit (χ2=33.7, P< 0.001), profession (χ2=12.7, P=0.013), taking computer training (χ2=17.44, P=0.000), computer access at work place (χ2=7.28, P=0.007), internet access at work place (χ2=22.2, P< 0.001), and frequency of internet use (χ2=17.63, P< 0.001) were found significant with COVID-19 information seeking.Conclusion: Information seeking behavior was positively associated with computer access, computer training, internet access and frequency of use. Therefore, comprehensive package is required to build the capacity of care providers on computer-related skills. Besides, institutions need to have internet and computer access.Keywords: information seeking, COVID-19, pandemic, Ethiopia
Kalayou MH, Tilahun B, Endehabtu BF, Nurhussien F, Melese T, Guadie HA
Information Systems as support tool to rural diversification
Agricultura Familiar, desenvolvimento rural sustentável, inovações tecnológicas
Family farming is recognized by the rural development that provides a sustainable manner, and to diversify its activities can prolong their existence and expand the principles of sustainability. However, this sector is lacking in tools in Information Systems (IS) to assist in decision making. The objective of this work is to understand the reasons that inhibit rural diversification and analyze the tools in IS available in the market for this purpose. For this, a questionnaire was applied to 20 family farmers of Oeste Paranaense with a quantitative approach and performed a bibliographic and documentary research about IS from rural sector, which had as sample Gerenpec and Planagri. The results show that the family farmers have difficulties in the financial planning of a new rural activity and little knowledge of persons or entities that offer this service. Still, everyone has access to the Internet and want to enhance their knowledge in the rural sector. For the IS available, both are outdated, lack mobility and ease of use. It is concluded that family farming is lacking in information systems to assist rural diversification, just in time that the Internet promotes agility to access the information. This paper presents data that contribute to researchers of the rural sector and Information Technology, as well as contributing to sustainable rural development through assistance to the family farmer.
Aldi Feiden, Luciano Lizzoni, Armin Feiden
http://codaf.tupa.unesp.br:8082/index.php/recodaf/article/view/66