Fighting the Misinformation Crisis

and inequitable. The sixty nine page report released by the House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis called the virus an American fiasco. The subcommittee said the administration's response is quote among the worst failures of leadership in American history. The report said that relief programs for workers and small businesses were weakened because the administration gave priority to bigger companies and inadequate financial controls led to significant fraud, waste,

and abuse. The UK's drug regulator is speeding up reviews of COVID nineteen vaccines that Fiser and Astra Zeneca are developing. Britain hopes to approve the first successful shot as quickly as possible. The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency started a review of the Fiser vaccine in recent weeks,

according to a person with knowledge of the situation. A spokesman for Astra Zenica confirmed that the agency is also conducting an expedited review of Astra's vaccine, which the company is co developing with the University of Oxford. Finally, a federal judge ruled against landlord groups who were seeking to block the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National moratorium on evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic in Atlanta,

U S District. Judge JP Booley said the public interest in controlling the spread of COVID nineteen outweighed the landlord's economic interest, saying their quote economic harm pales in comparison to the significant loss of lives that could occur if the order was blocked. And now for today's main story, the coronavirus is both a medical problem and a public health problem that's baked into its biology. But the pandemic in the US has been exacerbated by another challenge of

our own, making, a pervasive atmosphere of distrust. That atmosphere has let misinformation about the virus flourish. That misinformation is often amplified by the man with the country's loudest megaphone, President Donald Trump. I spoke to healthcare reporter John Tazzi about how the information crisis has made practicing medicine in a pandemic even more difficult. I was wondering if you might just briefly sketch some of the misinformation or even

conspiracy theories that we've been seeing surrounding COVID nineteen. Yeah. I think there's a range of things, everything from you know, people who believe that the virus is a hoax or that it's entirely made up, to allegations that doctors or hospitals are in free being the number of cases or the number of deaths attributed to covid um, which we haven't really seen evidence of, but it's a belief that's

out there too. You know, more kind of common misunderstandings or just questions that people might not know, you know, good information about, like whether you know, does wearing a mask put you at risk of not getting enough oxygen? Doctors say that's not a risk, that there's no reason to not wear a mask, won't hurt your ability to breathe. But you know, some people have that kind of misconception as well. So it's really a gamut from very elaborate

conspiracies to more common misconceptions. One doctor I spoke to said that, um, some of her patients were so afraid of the coronavirus that they were deferring needed medical care, which put their health at risk. Right, So that's, ah, you know, that's maybe not the same type of misinformation as we think of a conspiue racy saying the virus

is a hoax. But you know, if people aren't able to kind of accurately gauge their own risk and are you know, differring important care that they need because they're afraid of catching COVID, you know, that can be a sort of other aspect of misinformation. And is there one particular source or how is this information or shall we

say misinformation spreading? It's a good question, and I think, you know, it's sort of a you know, it's a factor of the broader kind of information environment that we all live in right now, right where there's a flood of information from many sources, and the World Health Organization actually identified this very early on before COVID nineteen was even declared a pandemic. The w h O identified what

it called an infodemic UM. So the sort of flood of information, both accurate and not that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable information when they need it. They said that February second, and since then, you know, I think we've just seen this proliferate on social media, you know, from other sources, and you know, it's sort of the elephant in the room. But the President of the United States UM has routinely and repeatedly

made false statements about COVID nineteen. And you know, one analysis from Cornell University actually identified President Trump as the largest source of misinformation about the virus. So you know, when those messages get amplified in all sorts of ways in the media, on television and social media, there's not

I think a single source. But we're in an environment with high levels of distrust for all sorts of institutions, and you know, and the media, UM extreme political polarization days before an election in UM, and you know, the science and public health advice and that has been kind

of wrapped up in that. I mean, is that part and parcel of just how quickly in some ways all this has come about in that because there was just no information about COVID nineteen, and we've been, even from a scientific perspective, trying to just find out more and more. There has been understandably some false starts in terms of developing therapeutics, developing medicines, theories about what might be successful

in treating COVID nineteen. Do you think that has lent to this perspective perhaps by some that they just don't know what information to trust. Yeah, I think that's I think that's right. I mean, one interesting thing that someone I interviewed, the head of the American Medical Association, actually mentioned to me was that as we learn more about coronavirus, the coronavirus and how it affects people, and how it

spreads and how to treat it. You know, as the kind of world of scientific evidence proliferates, there's misinformation proliferating for you know, each of those points. Right, So, as we learn more about potential vaccines that are in development, there's more misinformation about vaccines. As we learn more about ways to keep it from spreading, misinformation proliferates around those guidelines so you know, it is a really tough thing I think for people in general. UM, this is a

new virus. We are learning, or at least in the early days, we're learning in real time. Some recommendations change based on things we learned, and that's how science works. UM. But I think it can make it really hard for people, you know, even in good faith, trying to figure out how to behave in an environment with a lot of uncertainty and all of competing sources of information. The early recommendations in the United States where that people shouldn't wear masks.

That was because there was a shortage of masks and the policymakers were concerned that, you know, people buying up surgical masks would make it harder for healthcare workers who needed them. UM. But as we learned more about how the virus could spread among people who had no symptoms, UM, that was that was an important way that the virus spread,

the recommendations for face coverings came out. We're learning new things and have to adapt to that, and but that change can create I think an environment where people can misunderstand things, or people who are deliberately trying to manipulate information or behavior. UM. Have an opportunity to do that.

You know, as we anticipate the the availability and the distribution of the a COVID nineteen vaccine, how do you see that amount of distrust potentially affecting the success of this vaccine In terms of impacting the risk to COVID nineteen.

I think it is a It is a big risk that we will have a vaccine that works, that has been uh, you know, proven in rigorous clinical trials, and that a large chunk of the population will not want to take it because they don't trust it or they don't trust the authorities who have said that it is authorized or safe to take. I think, you know, we're going to be having that conversation. Um, you know, maybe

in a few months. I think the President suggested that a vaccine would be ready sooner than his scientific advisors said. There was a lot of suspicion and allegations that there were, you know, efforts to accelerate a vaccine for political purposes and to have something authorized before the election. It seems

like that's not going to happen now. But and then on the you know, the response of some Democratic governors has been to say that they want to independently have their states vet a vaccine that's approved, you know, even after a Food and Drug Administration authorization. So you know, I think it's unprecedented and it's pretty dangerous territory in

some ways. UM. And you know, the data from polling Gamma polls show that the number of the percentage of people who said they'd be willing to take an FDA approved vaccine has declined substantially since the summer. Um. Maybe that will be reversed, but it's a it's a concern that doctors expressed to me that you know, all this work and all this really tremendous scientific enterprise to get to a shot in record time, UM, you know, will be diminished if people don't take it. And and that's

you know, that's not a question of science. That's a question of human behavior and trust and kind of where we are as a society. And you know, we'll find out more about that in the months ahead. And that was John Tozzi And that's it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, Please leave us a review

and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by top foreheads Jordan's Gospore, Magnus Henrickson, and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by John Tozzi. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening. H