COVID-19 misinformation

Wuhan lab origin

Stolen from Canadian lab

Some social media users have alleged that COVID-19 was stolen from a Canadian virus research lab by Chinese scientists. Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada said that this had "no factual basis".^[91] The stories seem to have been derived from a July 2019 CBC news article stating that some Chinese researchers had their security access to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, a Level 4 virology lab, revoked after a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation.^[92][93] Canadian officials described this as an administrative matter and said there was no risk to the Canadian public.^[92]

Responding to the conspiracy theories, the CBC stated that its articles "never claimed the two scientists were spies, or that they brought any version of [a] coronavirus to the lab in Wuhan". While pathogen samples were transferred from the lab in Winnipeg to Beijing on 31 March 2019, neither of the samples contained a coronavirus. The Public Health Agency of Canada has stated that the shipment conformed to all federal policies, and that the researchers in question are still under investigation, and thus it cannot be confirmed nor denied that these two were responsible for sending the shipment. The current location of the researchers under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has also not been released.^[91][94][95]

In a January 2020 press conference, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, when asked about the case, stated that he could not comment specifically on it, but expressed concerns about "increased efforts by the nations to spy on NATO allies in different ways".^[96]

Accusations by China

According to The Economist, conspiracy theories exist on China's internet about COVID-19 being created by the CIA in order to "keep China down".^[97] According to an investigation by ProPublica, such conspiracy theories and disinformation have been propagated under the direction of China News Service, the country's second largest government-owned media outlet controlled by the United Front Work Department.^[98] Global Times and Xinhua News Agency have similarly been implicated in propagating disinformation related to COVID-19's origins.^[99] NBC News however has noted that there have also been debunking efforts of US-related conspiracy theories posted online, with a WeChat search of "Coronavirus [disease 2019] is from the U.S." reported to mostly yield articles explaining why such claims are unreasonable.^{[100][lower-alpha 1]}

On 12 March 2020, two spokesmen for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian and Geng Shuang, alleged at a press conference that Western powers may have "bio-engineered" COVID-19. They were alluding that the US Army created and spread COVID-19, allegedly during the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, where numerous cases of influenza-like illness were reported.^[113][114]

A member of the U.S. military athletics delegation based at Fort Belvoir, who competed in the 50mi Road Race at the Wuhan games, became the subject of online targeting by netizens accusing her of being "patient zero" of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, and was later interviewed by CNN, to clear her name from the "false accusations in starting the pandemic".^[115]

In January 2021, Hua Chunying renewed the conspiracy theory from Zhao Lijian and Geng Shuang that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originating in the United States at the U.S. biological weapons lab Fort Detrick. This conspiracy theory quickly went trending on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, and Hua Chunying continued to cite evidence on Twitter, while asking the government of the United States to open up Fort Detrick for further investigation to determine if it is the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.^[116][117] In August 2021, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman repeatedly used an official podium to elevate the Fort Detrick's origin unproven idea.^[118]

According to a report from Foreign Policy, Chinese diplomats and government officials in concert with China's propaganda apparatus and covert networks of online agitators and influencers have responded, focused on repeating Zhao Lijian's allegation relating to Fort Detrick in Maryland, and the "over 200 U.S. biolabs" around the world.^[119]

Accusations by Russia

On 22 February 2020, US officials alleged that Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation campaign, using thousands of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to deliberately promote unfounded conspiracy theories, claiming the virus is a biological weapon manufactured by the CIA and the US is waging economic war on China using the virus.^{[120][121][122][lower-alpha 2]}

Accusations by other countries

According to Washington, DC-based nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute, numerous writers in the Arabic press have promoted the conspiracy theory that COVID-19, as well as SARS and the swine flu virus, were deliberately created and spread to sell vaccines against these diseases, and it is "part of an economic and psychological war waged by the U.S. against China with the aim of weakening it and presenting it as a backward country and a source of diseases".^{[128][lower-alpha 3]}

Accusations in Turkey of Americans creating the virus as a weapon have been reported,^[129][130] and a YouGov poll from August 2020 found that 37% of Turkish respondents believed the US government was responsible for creating and spreading the virus.^[131]

Reza Malekzadeh, Iran's deputy health minister, rejected bioterrorism theories.

An Iranian cleric in Qom said Donald Trump targeted the city with coronavirus "to damage its culture and honor".^[132] Reza Malekzadeh, Iran's deputy health minister and former Minister of Health, rejected claims that the virus was a biological weapon, pointing out that the US would be suffering heavily from it. He said Iran was hard-hit because its close ties to China and reluctance to cut air ties introduced the virus, and because early cases had been mistaken for influenza.^{[133][lower-alpha 4]}

The theory has also circulated in the Philippines^{[lower-alpha 5]} and Venezuela.^{[lower-alpha 6]} An October 2020 Globsec poll of Eastern European countries found that 38% of respondents in Montenegro and Serbia, 37% of those in North Macedonia, and 33% in Bulgaria believed the USA deliberately created COVID-19.^[146][147]

Jewish origin

Muslims spreading virus

In India, Muslims have been blamed for spreading infection following the emergence of cases linked to a Tablighi Jamaat religious gathering.^[160] There are reports of vilification of Muslims on social media and attacks on individuals in India.^[161] Claims have been made that Muslims are selling food contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 and that a mosque in Patna was sheltering people from Italy and Iran.^[162] These claims were shown to be false.^[163] In the UK, there are reports of far-right groups blaming Muslims for the pandemic and falsely claiming that mosques remained open after the national ban on large gatherings.^[164]

Population-control scheme

According to the BBC, Jordan Sather, a YouTuber supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the anti-vax movement, has falsely claimed that the outbreak was a population-control scheme created by the Pirbright Institute in England and by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.^{[8][165][166]}

Piers Corbyn was described as "dangerous" by physician and broadcaster Hilary Jones during their joint interview on Good Morning Britain in early September 2020. Corbyn described COVID-19 as a "psychological operation to close down the economy in the interests of mega-corporations" and stated "vaccines cause death".^[167]

5G mobile-phone networks

Openreach engineers appealed on anti-5G Facebook groups, saying they are not involved in mobile networks, and workplace abuse is making it difficult for them to maintain phonelines and broadband.

5G towers have been burned by people falsely blaming them for COVID-19.

In February 2020, BBC News reported that conspiracy theorists on social media groups alleged a link between COVID-19 and 5G mobile networks, claiming that the Wuhan and Diamond Princess outbreaks were directly caused by electromagnetic fields and by the introduction of 5G and wireless technologies. Conspiracy theorists have alleged that the pandemic was a cover-up for a 5G-related illness.^[168]

In March 2020, Thomas Cowan, a holistic medical practitioner who trained as a physician and operates on probation with the Medical Board of California, alleged that COVID-19 is caused by 5G. He based this on the claims that African countries had not been affected significantly by the pandemic and Africa was not a 5G region.^[169][170] Cowan also falsely alleged that the viruses were waste from cells that were poisoned by electromagnetic fields, and that historical viral pandemics coincided with major developments in radio technology.^[170]

The video of Cowan's claims went viral and was recirculated by celebrities, including Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, and singer Keri Hilson.^[171] The claims may also have been recirculated by an alleged "coordinated disinformation campaign", similar to campaigns used by the Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg, Russia.^[172] The claims were criticized on social media and debunked by Reuters,^[173] USA Today,^[174] Full Fact^[175] and American Public Health Association executive director Georges C. Benjamin.^[169][176]

Cowan's claims were repeated by Mark Steele, a conspiracy theorist who claimed to have first-hand knowledge that 5G was in fact a weapon system capable of causing symptoms identical to those produced by the virus.^[177] Kate Shemirani, a former nurse who had been struck off the UK nursing registry and had become a promoter of conspiracy theories, repeatedly claimed that these symptoms were identical to those produced by exposure to electromagnetic fields.^[178][179]

Steve Powis, national medical director of NHS England, described theories linking 5G mobile-phone networks to COVID-19 as the "worst kind of fake news".^[180] Viruses cannot be transmitted by radio waves, and COVID-19 has spread and continues to spread in many countries that do not have 5G networks.^[181]

There were 20 suspected arson attacks on phone masts in the UK over the 2020 Easter weekend.^[180] These included an incident in Dagenham where three men were arrested on suspicion of arson, a fire in Huddersfield that affected a mast used by emergency services, and a fire in a mast that provides mobile connectivity to the NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham.^[180] Some telecom engineers reported threats of violence, including threats to stab and murder them, by individuals who believe them to be working on 5G networks.^[182] On 12 April 2020, Gardaí and fire services were called to fires at 5G masts in County Donegal, Ireland.^[183] The Gardaí were treating the fires as arson.^[183] After the arson attacks, British Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said the theory that COVID-19 virus may be spread by 5G wireless communication is "just nonsense, dangerous nonsense as well".^[184] Telecommunications provider Vodafone announced that two Vodafone masts and two it shares with O2, another provider, had been targeted.^[185][186]

By 6 April 2020, at least 20 mobile-phone masts in the UK had been vandalised since the previous Thursday.^[187] Because of the slow rollout of 5G in the UK, many of the damaged masts had only 3G and 4G equipment.^[187] Mobile-phone and home broadband operators estimated there were at least 30 incidents where engineers maintaining equipment were confronted in the week up to 6 April.^[187] As of 30 May, there had been 29 incidents of attempted arson at mobile-phone masts in the Netherlands, including one case where "Fuck 5G" was written.^[188][189] There have also been incidents in Ireland and Cyprus.^[190] Facebook has deleted messages encouraging attacks on 5G equipment.^[187]

Engineers working for Openreach, a division of British Telecom, posted pleas on anti-5G Facebook groups asking to be spared abuse as they are not involved with maintaining mobile networks.^[191] Industry lobby group Mobile UK said the incidents were affecting the maintenance of networks that support home working and provide critical connections to vulnerable customers, emergency services, and hospitals.^[191] A widely circulated video showed a woman accusing employees of broadband company Community Fibre of installing 5G as part of a plan to kill the population.^[191]

Of those who believed that 5G networks caused COVID-19 symptoms, 60% stated that much of their knowledge about the virus came from YouTube.^[192] In April 2020, YouTube announced that it would reduce the amount of content claiming links between 5G and COVID-19.^[185] Videos that are conspiratorial about 5G that do not mention COVID-19 would not be removed, though they might be considered "borderline content" and therefore removed from search recommendations, losing advertising revenue.^[185] The discredited claims had been circulated by British conspiracy theorist David Icke in videos (subsequently removed) on YouTube and Vimeo, and an interview by London Live TV network, prompting calls for action by Ofcom.^[193][194] It took YouTube on average 41 days to remove Covid-related videos containing false information in the first half of 2020.^[195]

Ofcom issued guidance to ITV following comments by Eamonn Holmes about 5G and COVID-19 on This Morning.^[196] Ofcom said the comments were "ambiguous" and "ill-judged" and they "risked undermining viewers' trust in advice from public authorities and scientific evidence".^[196] Ofcom also found local channel London Live in breach of standards for an interview it had with David Icke. It said that he had "expressed views which had the potential to cause significant harm to viewers in London during the pandemic".^[196]

On 24 April 2020, The Guardian revealed that Jonathan Jones, an evangelical pastor from Luton, had provided the male voice on a recording blaming 5G for deaths caused by COVID-19.^[197] He claimed to have formerly headed the largest business unit at Vodafone, but insiders at the company said that he was hired for a sales position in 2014 when 5G was not a priority for the company and that 5G would not have been part of his job.^[197] He had left Vodafone after less than a year.^[197]

A tweet started an internet meme that Bank of England £20 banknotes contained a picture of a 5G mast and the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Facebook and YouTube removed items pushing this story, and fact checking organisations established that the picture is of Margate Lighthouse and the "virus" is the staircase at the Tate Britain.^{[198][199][200]}

American scientist selling virus to China

In April 2020, rumors circulated on Facebook, alleging that the US Government had "just discovered and arrested" Charles Lieber, chair of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department at Harvard University for "manufacturing and selling" the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) to China. According to a report from Reuters, posts spreading the rumor were shared in multiple languages over 79,000 times on Facebook.^[201] Lieber was arrested on 28 January 2020, and later charged with two federal counts of making an allegedly false statement about his links to a Chinese university, unrelated to the virus. The rumor of Lieber, a chemist in an area entirely unrelated to the virus research, developing COVID-19 and selling it to China has been discredited.^[202]

Meteor origin

In 2020, a group of researchers that most notably included Edward J. Steele and Chandra Wickramasinghe, the foremost living proponent of panspermia, claimed in ten research papers that COVID-19 originated from a meteor spotted as a bright fireball over the city of Songyuan in Northeast China on 11 October 2019 and that a fragment of the meteor landed in the Wuhan area, which started the first COVID-19 outbreaks. However, the group of researchers did not provide any direct evidence proving this conjecture.^[203]

In an August 2020 article, Astronomy.com called the meteor origin conjecture "so remarkable that it makes the others look boring by comparison".^[203]

NCMI intelligence report

In April 2020, ABC News reported that, in November 2019, "U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China's Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population". The article stated that the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), had produced an intelligence report in November 2019 which raised concerns about the situation. The director of the NCMI, Col. R. Shane Day said "media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists".^[204][205]

In China

In the US

Accusations have been made of under-reporting, over-reporting, and other problems. Necessary data was corrupted in some places, for example, on the state level in the United States.^[226]

The public health handling of the pandemic has been hampered by the use of archaic technology (including fax machines and incompatible formats),^[212] poor data flow and management (or even no access to data), and general lack of standardization and leadership.^[227] Privacy laws hampered contact tracing and case finding efforts, which resulted in under-diagnosis and under-reporting.^[228]

Misinformation targeting Taiwan

On 26 February 2020, the Taiwanese Central News Agency reported that large amounts of misinformation had appeared on Facebook claiming the pandemic in Taiwan was out of control, the Taiwanese government had covered up the total number of cases, and that President Tsai Ing-wen had been infected. The Taiwan fact-checking organization had suggested the misinformation on Facebook shared similarities with mainland China due to its use of simplified Chinese characters and mainland China vocabulary. The organization warned that the purpose of the misinformation is to attack the government.^{[239][240][241]}

In March 2020, Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau warned that China was trying to undermine trust in factual news by portraying the Taiwanese government reports as fake news. Taiwanese authorities have been ordered to use all possible means to track whether the messages were linked to instructions given by the Chinese Communist Party. The PRC's Taiwan Affairs Office denied the claims, calling them lies, and said that Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party was "inciting hatred" between the two sides. They then claimed that the "DPP continues to politically manipulate the virus".^[242] According to The Washington Post, China has used organized disinformation campaigns against Taiwan for decades.^[243]

Nick Monaco, the research director of the Digital Intelligence Lab at Institute for the Future, analyzed the posts and concluded that the majority appear to have come from ordinary users in China, not the state. However, he criticized the Chinese government's decision to allow the information to spread beyond China's Great Firewall, which he described as "malicious".^[244] According to Taiwan News, nearly one in four cases of misinformation are believed to be connected to China.^[245]

On 27 March 2020, the American Institute in Taiwan announced that it was partnering with the Taiwan FactCheck Center to help combat misinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak.^[246]

Misrepresented World Population Project map

In early February 2020, a decade-old map illustrating a hypothetical viral outbreak published by the World Population Project (part of the University of Southampton) was misappropriated by a number of Australian media news outlets (and British tabloids The Sun, Daily Mail and Metro)^[247] which claimed the map represented the COVID-19 pandemic. This misinformation was then spread via the social media accounts of the same media outlets, and while some outlets later removed the map, the BBC reported, on 19 February, that a number of news sites had yet to retract the map.^[247]

"Casedemic"

COVID-19 deniers use the word casedemic as a shorthand for a conspiracy theory holding that COVID-19 is harmless and that the reported disease figures are merely a result of increased testing. The concept is particularly attractive to anti-vaccination activists, who use it to argue that public health measures, and particularly vaccines, are not needed to counter what they say is a fake epidemic.^{[248][249][250][251]}

David Gorski writes that the word casedemic was seemingly coined by Ivor Cummins—an engineer whose views are popular among COVID-19 deniers—in August 2020.^[248]

The term has been adopted by alternative medicine advocate Joseph Mercola, who has exaggerated the effect of false positives in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to construct a false narrative that testing is invalid because it is not perfectly accurate (see also § PCR testing, above). In reality, the problems with PCR testing are well-known and accounted for by public health authorities. Such claims also disregard the possibility of asymptomatic spread, the number of potentially-undetected cases during the initial phases of the pandemic in comparison to the present due to increased testing and knowledge since, and other variables that can influence PCR tests.^[248]

California herd immunity in 2019

In March 2020, Victor Davis Hanson publicized a theory that COVID-19 may have been in California in the fall of 2019 resulting in a level of herd immunity to at least partially explain differences in infection rates in cities such as New York City vs Los Angeles.^[255] Jeff Smith of Santa Clara County stated that evidence indicated the virus may have been in California since December 2019.^[256] Early genetic and antibody analyses refute the idea that the virus was in the United States prior to January 2020.^{[253][254][257][258]}

Patient Zero

In March 2020, conspiracy theorists started the false rumor that Maatje Benassi, a US army reservist, was "Patient Zero" of the pandemic, the first person to be infected with COVID-19.^[259] Benassi was targeted because of her participation in the 2019 Military World Games at Wuhan before the pandemic started, even though she never tested positive for the virus. Conspiracy theorists even connected her family to the DJ Benny Benassi as a Benassi virus plot, even though they are not related and Benny had also not had the virus.^[260]

Surface and fomite transmission

Early in the pandemic it was claimed that COVID-19 could be spread by contact with contaminated surfaces or fomites—even though this is an uncommon transmission route for other respiratory viruses. This led to recommendations that high-contact surfaces (like playground equipment or school desks) be frequently deep-cleaned and that certain items (like groceries or mailed packages) be disinfected.^[261] Ultimately, the US CDC concluded that the likelihood of transmission under these scenarios was less than 1 in 10,000.^[262] They further concluded that handwashing reduced the risk of exposure to COVID-19, but surface disinfection did not.^[262]

Resistance/susceptibility based on ethnicity

There have been claims that specific ethnicities are more or less vulnerable to COVID-19. COVID-19 is a new zoonotic disease, so no population has yet had the time to develop population immunity.

Beginning on 11 February 2020, reports quickly spread via Facebook, implied that a Cameroonian student in China had been completely cured of the virus due to his African genetics. While a student was successfully treated, other media sources have indicated that no evidence implies Africans are more resistant to the virus and labeled such claims as false information.^[263] Kenyan Secretary of Health Mutahi Kagwe explicitly refuted rumors that "those with black skin cannot get coronavirus [disease 2019]", while announcing Kenya's first case on 13 March.^[264] This false myth was cited as a contributing factor in the disproportionately high rates of infection and death observed among African Americans.^[265][266]

There have been claims of "Indian immunity": that the people of India have more immunity to the COVID-19 virus due to living conditions in India. This idea was deemed "absolute drivel" by Anand Krishnan, professor at the Centre for Community Medicine of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He said there was no population immunity to the COVID-19 virus yet, as it is new, and it is not even clear whether people who have recovered from COVID-19 will have lasting immunity, as this happens with some viruses but not with others.^[267]

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed the virus was genetically targeted at Iranians by the US, giving this explanation for the pandemic having seriously affected Iran. He did not offer any evidence.^[268][269]

A group of Jordanian researchers published a report claiming that Arabs are less vulnerable to COVID-19 due to a genetic variation specific to those of Middle East heritage. This paper had not been debunked by November 2020.^[270]

Bat soup consumption

Some media outlets, including Daily Mail and RT, as well as individuals, disseminated a video showing a Chinese woman eating a bat, falsely suggesting it was filmed in Wuhan and connecting it to the outbreak.^[279][280] However, the widely circulated video contains unrelated footage of a Chinese travel vlogger, Wang Mengyun, eating bat soup in the island country of Palau in 2016.^{[279][280][281][282]} Wang posted an apology on Weibo,^[281][282] in which she said she had been abused and threatened,^[281] and that she had only wanted to showcase Palauan cuisine.^[281][282] The spread of misinformation about bat consumption has been characterized by xenophobic and racist sentiment toward Asians.^{[283][284][285]} In contrast, scientists suggest the virus originated in bats and migrated into an intermediary host animal before infecting people.^[283][286]

Large gatherings

South Korean "conservative populist" Jun Kwang-hun told his followers there was no risk to mass public gatherings as the virus was impossible to contract outdoors. Many of his followers are elderly.^[287]

Lifetime of the virus

Misinformation has spread that the lifetime of SARS-CoV-2 is only 12 hours and that staying home for 14 hours during the Janata curfew would break the chain of transmission.^[288] Another message claimed that observing the Janata curfew would result in the reduction of COVID-19 cases by 40%.^[288]

Mosquitoes

It has been claimed that mosquitoes transmit COVID-19. There is no evidence that this is true. COVID-19 is likely to spread through small droplets of saliva and mucus.^[181]

Contaminated objects

A fake Costco product recall notice circulated on social media purporting that Kirkland-brand bath tissue had been contaminated with COVID-19 (meaning SARS-CoV-2) due to the item being made in China. No evidence supports that SARS-CoV-2 can survive on surfaces for prolonged periods of time (as might happen during shipping), and Costco has not issued such a recall.^{[289][290][291]}

A warning claiming to be from the Australia Department of Health said COVID-19 spreads through petrol pumps and that everyone should wear gloves when filling up petrol in their cars.^[292]

There were claims that wearing shoes in one's home was the reason behind the spread of COVID-19 in Italy.^[293]

Cruise ships as safe havens

Claims by cruise-ship operators notwithstanding, there are many cases of coronaviruses in hot climates; some countries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf are severely affected.

In March 2020, the Miami New Times reported that managers at Norwegian Cruise Line had prepared a set of responses intended to convince wary customers to book cruises, including "blatantly false" claims that COVID-19 "can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise", that "Scientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the Coronavirus [sic]", and that the virus "cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to".^[294]

Flu is seasonal (becoming less frequent in the summer) in some countries, but not in others. While it is possible that COVID-19 will also show some seasonality, this has not yet been determined.^{[295][296][297]} When COVID-19 spread along international air travel routes, it did not bypass tropical locations.^[298] Outbreaks on cruise ships, where an older population lives in close quarters, frequently touching surfaces which others have touched, were common.^[299][300]

It seems that COVID-19 can be transmitted in all climates.^[181] It has seriously affected many warm-climate countries. For instance, Dubai, with a year-round average daily high of 28.0 Celsius (82.3 °F) and the airport said to have the world's most international traffic, has had thousands of cases.

Breastfeeding infants

While commercial companies that make breastmilk substitutes promote their products during the pandemic, the WHO and UNICEF advise that women should continue to breastfeed during the COVID-19 pandemic even if they have confirmed or suspected COVID-19. Current evidence indicates that it is unlikely that COVID-19 can be transmitted through breast milk.^[301]

Sexual transmission and infertility

Corona virus can persist in men's semen even after they have begun to recover, although the virus cannot replicate in the reproductive system.^[302]

Chinese researchers who found the virus in the semen of men infected with COVID-19, claimed that this opened up a small chance the disease could be sexually transmitted, though this claim has been questioned by other academics since this has been shown with many other viruses such as Ebola and Zika.^[303]

A team of Italian scholars said in a paper it released in March that 11 of 43 men who recovered from infections, or one-quarter of the test subjects, were found to have either azoospermia (no sperm in semen) or oligospermia (low sperm count). Mechanisms through which infectious diseases affect sperm is roughly divided into two categories. One involves viruses entering the testes, where they attack spermatogonia. The other involves high fever exposing the testes to heat and thereby killing sperm.

^[303]

Efficacy of hand sanitizer, antibacterial soaps

Washing in soap and water for at least 20 seconds is the best way to clean hands. The second-best is a hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol.^[305]

Claims that hand sanitizer is merely "antibacterial not antiviral", and therefore ineffective against COVID-19, have spread widely on Twitter and other social networks. While the effectiveness of sanitiser depends on the specific ingredients, most hand sanitiser sold commercially inactivates SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.^[306][307] Hand sanitizer is recommended against COVID-19,^[181] though unlike soap, it is not effective against all types of germs.^[308] Washing in soap and water for at least 20 seconds is recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as the best way to clean hands in most situations. However, if soap and water are not available, a hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol can be used instead, unless hands are visibly dirty or greasy.^[305][309] The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration both recommend plain soap; there is no evidence that antibacterial soaps are any better, and limited evidence that they might be worse long-term.^[310][311]

Public use of face masks

The U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams urged people to wear face masks and acknowledged that it is difficult to correct earlier messaging that masks do not work for the general public.^[312]

Authorities, especially in Asia, recommended wearing face masks in public early in the pandemic. In other parts of the world, authorities made conflicting (or contradictory) statements.^[313] Several governments and institutions, such as in the United States, initially dismissed the use of face masks by the general population, often with misleading or incomplete information about their effectiveness.^{[314][315][316]} Commentators have attributed the anti-mask messaging to attempts at managing mask shortages caused by initial inaction, remarking that the claims went beyond the science, or were simply lies.^{[316][317][318][319]}

In February 2020, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted "Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus [disease 2019]"; he later reversed his position with increasing evidence that masks can limit the spread of COVID-19.^[320][321] On 12 June 2020, Anthony Fauci (a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force) confirmed that the American public were told not to wear masks from the beginning, due to a shortage of masks, and then explained that masks do actually work.^{[322][323][324][325]}

Some media outlets claimed that neck gaiters were worse than not wearing masks at all in the COVID-19 pandemic, misinterpreting a study which was intended to demonstrate a method for evaluating masks (and not actually to determine the effectiveness of different types of masks).^{[326][327][328]} The study also only looked at one wearer wearing the one neck gaiter made from a polyester/spandex blend, which is not sufficient evidence to support the claim about gaiters made in the media.^[327] The study found that the neck gaiter, which was made from a thin and stretchy material, appeared to be ineffective at limiting airborne droplets expelled from the wearer; Isaac Henrion, one of the co-authors, suggests that the result was likely due to the material rather than the style, stating that "Any mask made from that fabric would probably have the same result, no matter the design."^[329] Warren S. Warren, a co-author, said that they tried to be careful with their language in interviews, but added that the press coverage has "careened out of control" for a study testing a measuring technique.^[326]

There are false claims spread that the usage of masks causes adverse health-related issues such as low blood oxygen levels,^[330] high blood carbon dioxide levels,^[331] and a weakened immune system.^[332] Some also falsely claimed that masks cause antibiotic-resistant pneumonia by preventing pathogenic organisms to be exhaled away from the body.^[333]

Individuals have speciously claimed legal or medical exemptions to avoid complying with mask mandates.^[334] Individuals have, for instance, claimed that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; designed to prohibit discrimination based on disabilities) allows exemption from mask requirements. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) responded that the Act "does not provide a blanket exemption to people with disabilities from complying with legitimate safety requirements necessary for safe operations".^[335] The DOJ also issued a warning about cards (sometimes featuring DOJ logos or ADA notices) that claim to "exempt" their holders from wearing masks, stating that these cards are fraudulent and not issued by any government agency.^[336][337]

On 31 July 2020, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte said those who did not have cleaning supplies could use gasoline as a disinfectant to clean their masks:^[338] "For people who don't [have Lysol], drench it in gasoline or diesel ... just find some gasoline [and] dip your hand [with the mask] in it."^[338] His spokesman, Harry Roque, later corrected him.^[338]

Alcoholic beverages

Contrary to some reports, drinking alcohol does not protect against COVID-19, and can increase health risks^[181] (short term and long term). Drinking alcohol is ethanol; other alcohols, such as methanol, which causes methanol poisoning, are acutely poisonous, and may be present in badly prepared alcoholic beverages.^[339]

Iran has reported incidents of methanol poisoning, caused by the false belief that drinking alcohol would cure or protect against COVID-19;^[340] alcohol is banned in Iran, and bootleg alcohol may contain methanol.^[341] According to Iranian media in March 2020, nearly 300 people have died and more than a thousand have become ill due to methanol poisoning, while Associated Press gave figures of around 480 deaths with 2,850 others affected.^[342] The number of deaths due to methanol poisoning in Iran reached over 700 by April.^[343] Iranian social media had circulated a story from British tabloids that a British man and others had been cured of COVID-19 with whiskey and honey,^[340][344] which combined with the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers as disinfectants, led to the false belief that drinking high-proof alcohol can kill the virus.^{[340][341][342]}

Similar incidents have occurred in Turkey, with 30 Turkmenistan citizens dying from methanol poisoning related to COVID-19 cure claims.^[345][346]

In Kenya, in April 2020, the Governor of Nairobi Mike Sonko came under scrutiny for including small bottles of the cognac Hennessy in care packages, falsely claiming that alcohol serves as "throat sanitizer" and that, from research, it is believed that "alcohol plays a major role in killing coronavirus [disease 2019]".^[347][348]

In July 2020, the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, recommended drinking vodka to prevent COVID-19.^[349]

Warm or hot drinks

There were several claims that drinking warm drinks at a temperature of around 30 °C (86 °F) protects one from COVID-19, most notably by Alberto Fernández, the president of Argentina said "The WHO recommends that one drink many hot drinks because heat kills the virus." Scientists commented that the WHO had made no such recommendation, and that drinking hot water can damage the oral mucosa.^[350]

These false claims mostly spread out across social media and in Latin American countries.

Vegetarian immunity

Claims that vegetarians are immune to COVID-19 spread online in India, causing "#NoMeat_NoCoronaVirus" to trend on Twitter.^[351] Such claims are false.^[352]

Religious protection

A number of religious groups have claimed protection due to their faith. Some refused to stop practices, such as gatherings of large groups, that promoted the transmission of the virus.

In Israel, some Ultra-Orthodox Jews initially refused to close synagogues and religious seminaries and disregarded government restrictions because "The Torah protects and saves",^[353] which resulted in an eight-fold faster rate of infection among some groups.^[354]

In South Korea the River of Grace Community Church in Gyeonggi Province spread the virus after spraying salt water into their members' mouths in the belief that it would kill the virus,^[355] while the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu where a church leader claimed that no Shincheonji worshipers had caught the virus in February while hundreds died in Wuhan, later caused the biggest spread of the virus in the country.^[356][357] In Tanzania, President John Magufuli, instead of banning congregations, urged the faithfuls to go to pray in churches and mosques in the belief that it will protect them. He said that COVID-19 is a devil, therefore "cannot survive in the body of Jesus Christ; it will burn" (the "body of Jesus Christ" refers to the Christian church).^[358][359]

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, on 9 March 2020, the Church of Greece announced that Holy Communion, in which churchgoers eat pieces of bread soaked in wine from the same chalice, would continue as a practice.^[360] The Holy Synod said Holy Communion "cannot be the cause of the spread of illness", with Metropolitan Seraphim saying the wine was without blemish because it represented the blood and body of Christ, and that "whoever attends Holy Communion is approaching God, who has the power to heal".^[360] The Church refused to restrict Christians from taking Holy Communion,^[361] which was supported by several clerics,^[362] some politicians, and health professionals.^[362][363] The Greek Association of Hospital Doctors criticized these professionals for putting their religious beliefs before science.^[362] A review of the medical publications on the subject, published by a Greek physician, claims that the transmission of any infectious disease through the Holy Communion has never been documented. This controversy divided the Greek society, the politics and medical experts.^[364]

The Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat organised Ijtema mass gatherings in Malaysia, India, and Pakistan whose participants believed that God will protect them, causing the biggest rise in COVID-19 cases in these and other countries.^{[365][366][367]} In Iran, the head of Fatima Masumeh Shrine encouraged pilgrims to visit the shrine despite calls to close the shrine, saying that they "consider this holy shrine to be a place of healing".^[368] In Somalia, myths have spread claiming Muslims are immune to the virus.^[369]

Tobacco

In 2020, small observational studies were discussed on social media and other outlets in which tobacco smoking was shown to be protective against SARS-CoV-2 infections. In April 2020, researchers at a Paris hospital noted an inverse relationship between smoking and COVID-19 infections, which led to an increase in tobacco sales in France. These results were at first so astonishing that the French government initiated a clinical trial with transdermal nicotine patches. Clinical reviews of available information are clear, however, that smoking in fact leads to an increased chance of COVID-19 infections, and that smokers generally experience much more severe respiratory symptoms.^[370][371]

Cocaine

Cocaine does not protect against COVID-19. Several viral tweets spread around Europe and Africa, purporting that snorting cocaine would sterilize one's nostrils of SARS-CoV-2 particulates. In response, the French Ministry of Health released a public service announcement debunking this claim, saying "No, cocaine does NOT protect against COVID-19. It is an addictive drug that causes serious side effects and is harmful to people's health." The World Health Organization also debunked the claim.^[372]

Helicopter spraying

In Sri Lanka, the Philippines and India, it has been claimed that one should stay at home on particular days when helicopters spray "COVID-19 disinfectant" over homes. No such spraying has taken place, nor is it planned, nor, as of July 2020, is there any such agent that could be sprayed.^[373][374]

Vibrations

The notion that the vibrations generated by clapping during March 2020 Janata curfew would kill the virus was debunked by the media.^[375] Amitabh Bachchan was heavily criticised for one of his tweets, which claimed vibrations from clapping and blowing conch shells as part of the Janata Curfew would have reduced or destroyed COVID-19 potency as it was Amavasya, the darkest day of the month.^[376]

Food

In India, fake news circulated that the World Health Organization warned against eating cabbage to prevent COVID-19 infection.^[377] Claims that the poisonous fruit of the Datura plant is a preventive measure for COVID-19 resulted in eleven people being hospitalized in India. They ate the fruit, following the instructions from a TikTok video that propagated misinformation regarding the prevention of COVID-19.^[378][379]

Vitamin D

In February 2020, claims that Vitamin D pills could help prevent COVID-19 circulated on social media in Thailand.^[380] In May 2020, the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, while noting that "current advice is that the whole population of the UK should take vitamin D supplements to prevent vitamin D deficiency", found "no clinical evidence that vitamin D supplements are beneficial in preventing or treating COVID-19".^[381] Vitamin D promotion has gained traction amongst anti-vaccinationists, who wrongly say it can be taken as some kind of alternative to getting vaccinated against COVID-19.^[382]

A preprint of a journal article from Indonesia purporting to show a beneficial effect of vitamin D for COVID-19 went viral across social media, and was cited several times in mainstream academic literature, including in a recommendation from NICE. Subsequent investigation, however, found none of the authors seemed to be known of at the hospitals listed as their affiliations, suggesting the paper was entirely fraudulent.^[383]

Herbal treatments

Various national and party-held Chinese media heavily advertised an "overnight research" report by Wuhan Institute of Virology and Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on how shuanghuanglian, an herb mixture from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), can effectively inhibit COVID-19. The report led to a purchase craze of shuanghuanglian.^[393]

The president of Madagascar Andry Rajoelina launched and promoted in April 2020 a herbal drink based on an artemisia plant as a miracle cure that can treat and prevent COVID-19 despite a lack of medical evidence. The drink has been exported to other African countries.^[394][395]

Based on in-vitro studies, extracts of E. purpurea (Echinaforce) showed virucidal activity against coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Because the data was experimental and solely derived from cell cultures, antiviral effects in humans have not been elucidated. As a result, regulatory agencies have not recommended the use of Echinacea preparations for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19.^[396]

Vitamin C

During the COVID-19 pandemic, vitamin C was the subject of more FDA warning letters than any other quack treatment for COVID-19.^[397]

Common cold and flu treatments

In March 2020, a photo circulated online showing a 30-year-old Indian textbook that lists aspirin, antihistamines, and nasal spray as treatments for coronavirus diseases. False claims spread asserting that the book was evidence that COVID-19 started much earlier than reported and that common cold treatments could be a cure for COVID-19. The textbook actually talks about coronaviruses in general, as a family of viruses.^[398]

A rumor circulated on social media posts on Weibo, Facebook and Twitter claiming that Chinese experts said saline solutions could kill COVID-19. There is no evidence for this.^[399]

A tweet from French health minister Olivier Véran, a bulletin from the French health ministry, and a small speculative study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine raised concerns about ibuprofen worsening COVID-19, which spread extensively on social media. The European Medicines Agency^[400] and the World Health Organization recommended COVID-19 patients keep taking ibuprofen as directed, citing lack of convincing evidence of any danger.^[401]

Cow dung and urine

Indian political activist Swami Chakrapani and Member of the Legislative Assembly Suman Haripriya claimed that drinking cow urine and applying cow dung on the body can cure COVID-19.^[402][403] In Manipur, two people were arrested under the National Security Act for social media posts which said cow urine and dung did not cure the virus. (They were arrested under Section 153 of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc. and acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony).^[404]

WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan criticised politicians incautiously spreading such misinformation without evidence.^[405]

2-Deoxy-D-glucose

A drug based on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) was approved by the Drugs Controller General of India for emergency use as adjunct therapy in moderate to severe COVID-19 patients.^[406][407]

The drug was launched at a press conference with a false claim that it was approved by the World Health Organization.^[408] It was developed by the DRDO along with Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, who stated in a press release, that the drug "helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence".^{[407][409][410]} The Wire as well as The Hindu noted that the approval was based on poor evidence; no journal publication (or preprint) concerning efficacy and safety are yet available.^[409][410]

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) prescriptions

Since its third version, the COVID management guidelines from the Chinese National Health Commission recommends using Traditional Chinese medicines to treat the disease.^[411] In Wuhan, China Central Television reported that local authorities have pushed for a set of TCM prescriptions to be used for every case since early February.^[412] One formula was promoted at the national level by mid-February.^[413] The local field hospitals were explicitly TCM-oriented. According to state media, as of 16 March 2020, 91.91% of all Hubei patients have used TCM, with the rate reaching 99% in field hospitals and 94% in bulk quarantine areas.^[414] In March 2020, the online insert of the official People's Daily, distributed in The Daily Telegraph, published an article stating that Traditional Chinese medicine "helps fight coronavirus [disease 2019]".^[415]

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

There were claims that chloroquine was used to cure more than 12,000 COVID-19 patients in Nigeria.^[416]

On 11 March 2020, Adrian Bye, a tech startup leader who is not a doctor, suggested to cryptocurrency investors Gregory Rigano and James Todaro that "chloroquine will keep most people out of hospital". (Bye later admitted that he had reached this conclusion through "philosophy" rather than medical research.) Two days later, Rigano and Todaro promoted chloroquine in a self-published article that claimed affiliation with the Stanford University School of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences and the Birmingham School of Medicine – the three institutions mentioned that they had no links to the article, and Google removed the article for violating its terms of service.^[417]

Ivermectin

Dangerous treatments

Some QAnon proponents, including Jordan Sather and others, have promoted gargling "Miracle Mineral Supplement" (actually chlorine dioxide, a chemical used in some industrial applications as a bleach that may cause life-threatening reactions and even death) as a way of preventing or curing the disease. The Food and Drug Administration has warned multiple times that drinking MMS is "dangerous" as it may cause "severe vomiting" and "acute liver failure".^[425]

Twelve people were hospitalized in India when they ingested the poisonous thornapple (Datura stramonium AKA Jimsonweed) after seeing the plant recommended as a 'coronavirus [disease 2019] home remedy' in a TikTok video.^{[379][426][427]} Datura species contain many substances poisonous to humans, mainly through anticholinergic effects.^[428][429]

Silver

In February 2020, televangelist Jim Bakker promoted a colloidal silver solution, sold on his website, as a remedy for COVID-19; naturopath Sherrill Sellman, a guest on his show, falsely stated that it "hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours".^[430] The US Food and Drug Administration and New York Attorney General's office both issued cease-and-desist orders against Bakker, and he was sued by the state of Missouri over the sales.^[431][432]

The New York Attorney General's office also issued a cease-and-desist order to radio host Alex Jones, who was selling silver-infused toothpaste that he falsely claimed could kill the virus and had been verified by federal officials,^[433] causing a Jones spokesman to deny the products had been sold for the purpose of treating any disease.^[434] The FDA later threatened Jones with legal action and seizure of several silver-based products if he continued to promote their use against COVID-19.^[435]

Mustard oil

The yoga guru Ramdev claimed that one can treat COVID-19 by pouring mustard oil through the nose, causing the virus to flow into the stomach where it would be destroyed by gastric acid. He also claimed that if a person can hold their breath for a minute, it means they are not suffering from any type of coronavirus, symptomatic or asymptomatic. Both these claims were found to be false.^[436][437]

Untested treatments

Misinformation that the government is spreading an "anti-corona" drug in the country during Janata curfew, a stay-at-home curfew enforced in India, went viral on social media.^[439]

Following the first reported case of COVID-19 in Nigeria on 28 February, untested cures and treatments began to spread via platforms such as WhatsApp.^[440]

In March 2020, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested actor Keith Lawrence Middlebrook for wire fraud with a fake COVID-19 cure.^[441]

Spiritual healing

Another televangelist, Kenneth Copeland, claimed on Victory Channel during a programme called "Standing Against Coronavirus", that he can cure television viewers of COVID-19 directly from the television studio. The viewers had to touch the television screen to receive the spiritual healing.^[442][443]

Organ trafficking

In India, baseless rumours spread saying that people were being taken to care centres and killed to harvest their organs, with their bodies then being swapped to avoid suspicion. These rumours spread more quickly through online platforms such as WhatsApp, and resulted in protests, attacks against healthcare workers, and reduced willingness to seek COVID-19 testing and treatment.^[444]

Name of the disease

Social media posts and Internet memes claimed that COVID-19 derives from "Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease 19", or similar, as supposedly the "19th virus to come out of China".^[445] In fact, the WHO named the disease as follows: CO stands for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19 for when the outbreak was first identified (31 December 2019).^[446]

Another false social media rumor claimed COVID-19 was an acronym derived from a series of ancient symbols interpreted as "see a sheep surrender."^[447]

Simpsons prediction

Claims that The Simpsons had predicted the COVID-19 pandemic in 1993, accompanied by a doctored screenshot from the show (where the text "Corona Virus" was layered over the original text "Apocalypse Meow", without blocking it from view), were later found to be false. The claim had been widely spread on social media.^[448][449]

Return of wildlife

During the pandemic, many false and misleading images or news reports about the environmental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic were shared by clickbait journalism sources and social media.^[450]

A viral post that originated on Weibo and spread on Twitter claimed that a pack of elephants descended on a village under quarantine in China's Yunnan, got drunk on corn wine, and passed out in a tea garden.^[451] A Chinese news report debunked the claim that the elephants got drunk on corn wine and noted that wild elephants were a common sight in the village; the image attached to the post was originally taken at the Asian Elephant Research Center in Yunnan in December 2019.^[450]

Following reports of reduced pollution levels in Italy as a result of lockdowns, images purporting to show swans and dolphins swimming in Venice canals went viral on social media. The image of the swans was revealed to have been taken in Burano, where swans are common, while footage of the dolphins was filmed at a port in Sardinia hundreds of miles away.^[450] The Venice mayor's office clarified that the reported water clarity in the canals was due to the lack of sediment being kicked up by boat traffic, not a reduction in water pollution as initially reported.^[452]

Following the lockdown of India, a video clip purporting to show the extremely rare Malabar civet (a critically endangered, possibly extinct, species) walking the empty streets of Meppayur went viral on social media. Experts later identified the civet in the video as actually being the much commoner small Indian civet.^[453] Another viral Indian video clip showed a pod of humpback whales allegedly returning to the Arabian Sea offshore from Mumbai following the shutdown of shipping routes; however, this video was found to have actually been taken in 2019 in the Java Sea.^[454]

Virus remains in body permanently

It has been wrongly claimed that anyone infected with COVID-19 will have the virus in their bodies for life. While there is no curative treatment, most infected people recover from the disease and eliminate the virus from their bodies.^[181]

Social media

In early February 2020, Facebook, Twitter, and Google announced that they were working with WHO to address misinformation on their platforms.^[459] In a blog post, Facebook stated that it would remove content flagged by global health organizations and local authorities that violate its content policy on misinformation leading to "physical harm".^[460] Facebook is also giving free advertising to WHO.^[461] Nonetheless, a week after Trump's speculation that sunlight could kill the virus, The New York Times found "780 Facebook groups, 290 Facebook pages, nine Instagram accounts and thousands of tweets pushing UV light therapies", material which those companies declined to remove from their platforms.^[462] On 11 August 2020, Facebook removed seven million posts with misinformation about COVID-19.^[463]

At the end of February 2020, Amazon removed more than a million products that claimed to cure or protect against COVID-19, and removed tens of thousands of listings for health products whose prices were "significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon", although numerous items were "still being sold at unusually high prices" as of 28 February.^[464]

Millions of instances of COVID-19 misinformation have occurred across multiple online platforms.^[465] Other researchers monitoring the spread of fake news observed certain rumors started in China; many of them later spread to Korea and the United States, prompting several universities in Korea to start the multilingual "Facts Before Rumors" campaign to evaluate common claims seen online.^{[466][467][468][469]} The proliferation of such misinformation on social media has led to workshops for the application of machine learning resources to detect misinformation.^[470]

In addition, the divisive nature of the issue, being mired in existing political tensions, has led to online bullying of scientists.^[34]

Wikipedia

The media have praised Wikipedia's coverage of COVID-19 and its combating the inclusion of misinformation through efforts led by the English-language Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine, among other groups.^{[471][472][473]} From May 2020, Wikipedia's consensus for the COVID-19 pandemic page has been to "not mention the theory that the virus was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the article."^[474] WHO began working with Wikipedia to provide much of its infographics and reports on COVID-19 to help fight misinformation, with plans to use similar approaches for fighting misinformation about other infectious diseases in the future.^[475]

Newspapers and scholarly journals

Initially, many newspapers with paywalls lowered them for some or all their COVID-19 coverage.^[476][477] Many scientific publishers made scientific papers related to the outbreak open access (free).^[478]

The scientific publishing community, while intent on producing quality scholarly publications, has itself been negatively impacted by the infiltration of inferior or false research leading to the retraction of several articles on the topic of COVID-19, as well as polluting valid and reliable scientific study, bringing into question the reliability of research undertaken.^[479] Retraction Watch maintains a database of retracted COVID-19 articles.^[480]

Podcasts

In January 2022, 270 US healthcare professionals, scientists and professors wrote an open letter to Spotify complaining that podcast host Joe Rogan had a "concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the Covid-19 pandemic" and describing him as a "menace to public health". This was in part due to Rogan platforming and promoting the conspiracy theories of Robert W. Malone who was one of two recent guests on The Joe Rogan Experience who compared pandemic policies to the holocaust. The letter described the interview as a "mass-misinformation events of this scale have extraordinarily dangerous ramifications".^[481][482] The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the world's most popular podcasts, with an audience of millions. The Malone episode was removed from YouTube due to violation of the site's misinformation policy; the letter urged Spotify to adopt a medical misinformation policy.

Government censorship

In many countries, censorship was performed by governments, with "fake news" laws being enacted to criminalize certain types of speech regarding COVID-19. Often, people were arrested for making posts online.

In March 2020, the Turkish Interior Ministry reported 93 suspects and 19 arrests of social media users whose posts were "targeting officials and spreading panic and fear by suggesting the virus had spread widely in Turkey and that officials had taken insufficient measures".^[483] In April 2020, Iran's military said that 3600 people had been arrested for "spreading rumors" about COVID-19 in the country.^[484] In Cambodia, at least 17 individuals who expressed concerns about the spread of COVID-19 were arrested between January and March 2020 on "fake news" charges.^[485][486] In April 2020, Algerian lawmakers passed a law criminalizing "fake news" deemed harmful to "public order and state security".^[487]

In the Philippines,^[488] China,^[489] India,^[490][491] Egypt,^[492] Ethiopia,^[493] Bangladesh,^[494] Morocco,^[495] Pakistan,^[496] Saudi Arabia,^[497] Oman,^[498] Iran,^[499] Vietnam, Laos,^[500] Indonesia,^[491] Mongolia,^[491] Sri Lanka,^[501] Kenya, South Africa,^[502] Cote d'Ivoire,^[503] Somalia,^[504] Mauritius,^[505] Zimbabwe,^[506] Thailand,^[507] Kazakhstan,^[508] Azerbaijan,^[509] Montenegro,^[510] Serbia,^[511][512] Malaysia,^[513] Singapore,^[514][515] and Hong Kong, people have been arrested for allegedly spreading false information about the COVID-19 pandemic.^[491][516] The United Arab Emirates has introduced criminal penalties for the spread of misinformation and rumours related to the outbreak.^[517] Myanmar blocked access to 221 news websites,^[518] including several leading media outlets.^[519]

In the United States, some elected officials aided the spread of misinformation. On 3 January 2022, Congressman Troy Nehls entered a full transcript^[520][521] of the Malone interview on The Joe Rogan Experience into the Congressional Record in order to circumvent what he said was censorship by social media.^[522][520]