Tap into science communication Pix for illustration purposes.
THE initial discovery that Covid-19 would be a global threat was quickly followed by accusations and finger-pointing between the US and China, raising questions about the origins of the virus and fuelling conspiracy theories. The “infodemic”, as coined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), outpaced the pandemic, overshadowing voices from rational scientific efforts.
The initial geo-political handling of sensationalised news worsened pre-existing issues of trust-deficit by the people towards governments and pharmaceutical companies, resulting in an uphill battle against Covid-19 misinformation.
This set the scene for independent expert voices as information frontliners, and according to WHO, help “flatten the infodemic curve”.