We are fighting with a COVID-19 infodemic
The communications are important when we need to explain the rules to follow so that the population can comply with the norms in the pandemic COVID-19. The information may be timely and accurate when we want to report correctly for example in times to pandemic. The social media now can be faster and further, like the COVID-19 into the world. It is a challenge to win quickly when we are reporting is about. What the people hear, and reads is important during the outbreak making sure people will do the right to mitigate its impact, acting appropriately. Towards information in social networks can create a poverty of attention in the population and the efforts of the government to well communicate may be in vain. In the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenon called infodemic, in the definition of the World Health Organization is an overabundance of information (1), and this makes it hard for the population to find trusty information sources. This adds complexity to the current situation and leads to unwanted behavior increasing the speed of spread the virus and can spread misinformation faster increasing a bad perception of the COVID-19 (2). Infodemic has his ecosystem adding complexity in the pandemic dynamics. These arguments controlled the people who make emergency purchases, snatching how many disinfectants they would have had in supermarkets as well as the sanitary role, the use of unproven medical therapies to self-medication just to synthesize the symptoms of colds or to improve your immune systems. When less is more as the saying goes. The human mind has a limited ability to process stimuli. Therefore, the abundance of information hinders our ability to distinguish signal from noise and can lead us to make poor decisions. If the information does not understand properly this can develop dynamics that reinforce negative decisions in the population. These dynamics might be reinforced by the algorithms used by the social networks to guide the population to good behavior in the pandemic. Fighting infodemics and misinformation is a joint effort. When we visit social networks, we need to be careful because are less trustworthy than information from news organizations. To protect us at least we now know that access to accurate, relevant, reliable, trusted information is important to fight this pandemic.
References
1. World Health Organization. Situation Report — 85 [Internet]. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). 2020 [cited 2020 May 4]. Available from: https://www.who.int/teams/risk-communication/infodemic-management
2. Zarocostas J. How to fight an infodemic. Lancet (London, England). 2020 Feb 29;395(10225):676.