LOCAL
U of M physician uses social media to fight online coronavirus misinformation
As news and updates of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) rapidly evolve, so do misinformation, fear, and confusion. Dr. Rose Marie Leslie, a family medicine physician at the University of Minnesota, uses social media to combat false health information spread through popular social media platforms. Specifically, she has turned to TikTok, a popular platform among teens that shares user-generated videos of singing, dancing, and lip-synching. She has previously garnered success using this same platform to warn teens about dangers associated with vaping and now aims to share facts about 2019-nCoV. By Friday, her factual videos about the virus gained over three million views.
But truthful content does not guarantee virality. Last week, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook each implemented strategies to combat false content including their removal of misleading content about the virus, adjusting the search function to provide accurate health sources, or providing statements about how the platforms do not condone harmful and inaccurate content. When information evolves and spreads as rapidly as it has over the past two months, however, critics argue that these efforts are too late.
“Sometimes in emerging infectious disease outbreaks misinformation may be more dangerous than the actual threat of the virus because it prompts people to take action that may have secondary cascading effects,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Examples include conspiracy theories about governments inventing the virus for pro-vaccine propaganda, recommendations to drink a virus-curing bleaching agent called chlorine dioxide, and claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plans to enact martial law to contain the virus.
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NATIONAL
U.S. issues level four travel advisory for China
On Thursday, the State Department of the United States issued a level 4 travel advisory, advising citizens to avoid travel to China over concerns of 2019-nCoV. The warning followed the World Health Organization’s declaration that the outbreak is a global health emergency and announcements from several commercial airlines that they would suspend routes between the U.S. and mainland China.
The advisory recommends that U.S. citizens currently in China should depart by commercial means. U.S. citizens remaining in China should follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendations for prevention and treatment. U.S. citizens should avoid non-essential travel to all of China.
CDC has confirmed 11 cases in the U.S. in Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Washington, and Arizona, including two cases of person-to-person transmission.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases wants the American public to understand that the general risk is low for Americans who have neither traveled to China nor been in contact with someone who has. CDC recommends that people follow the standard guidelines to reduce the transmission of any respiratory illness. These include washing hands with soap and water and avoiding close contact with persons who are sick.
INTERNATIONAL
WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the 2019-nCoV outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Thursday. The International Health Regulations (2005) defines a PHEIC as an extraordinary or unexpected event whose international disease spread constitutes a public health risk to other countries and is serious enough to warrant an immediate, coordinated international response. WHO has previously assigned PHEIC declarations for swine flu (H1N1) in 2009, polio in 2014, Zika in 2016, and Ebola in 2014 and 2019.
As of Tuesday, 2019-nCoV has spread to more than 25 countries with over 20,646 cases worldwide, nearly all of which are in China. 427 deaths have been reported, including two mortalties outside of mainland China this week. Most international cases are people who had visited Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, but some cases include patients infected by people who traveled to China.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasizes that the PHEIC declaration does not diminish WHO’s confidence in China’s outbreak response, containment, and reporting. It arises from a concern for countries with weaker public health infrastructure. It aims to urgently mobilize international funding to support active surveillance, early detection, isolation, and prevention in countries where the impact of international spread could have significant effects.
- Stay up to date about new cases with WHO’s Health Emergency Dashboard, a regularly updated and interactive map.
Lauren Bernstein
Lauren received her BS in Animal Science from the University of Tennessee. Following a Rotary International site visit to South Africa as an undergraduate student, she decided to focus her prospective veterinary career on public health, specifically on issues involving diseases at the human-animal-environment interface. She completed her veterinary education at the University College Dublin, School of Veterinary Medicine. When she's not in the office, she enjoys yoga, embracing the outdoor activities in Minneapolis, and finding excuses to talk about her rescue cat.