THE DANGER OF MISINFORMATION
INeight days from now, Donald Trump will officially no longer be the United States President but he will be one former President who will be remembered for a long time to come.
Firstly, he came not from the usual background that most come. While most Presidents would be seasoned politicians before, probably held a political office, usually a senator, Trump came from the business world.
He had held no political office prior to his ascension to power. He defeated a lot of prominent Republican nominees during the Presidential race of 2016. One of the major tool for this was social media, he used Twitter a lot to reach out to millions of Americans.
His tweets were usually raw, very unlikely filtered by his editorial team, he just spoke his mind and didn’t care much whoever saw his tweets and how they interpreted them.
Trump continued with this even after he became the President, he had about 88 million twwitter followers. Some tweets were unpresidential but he didn’t care. Looking at the power he held, most of his followers took his tweets as truth. Recently there were some controversial tweets that is alleged to have sent that incited his followers to march to Capitol Hill and interrupt the process of confirming Joe Biden as the next US president.
The “peaceful protest” ended up in at least five dead including a Police officer. Twitter was forced to permanently suspend Trump’s account and is currently facing possible impeachment. He’ll be the first US President to face this twice.
Though Trump tweeted on lot of subjects most of which he didn’t have the expertise on, one greatly affected was health. His tweets about the Covid-19 pandemic, has left a lasting impression all over the world.
The common tweets and claims is that Covid-19 is a hoax. He claimed that doctors are paid more if they certify one as having died of Covid. He even once proposed injecting bleach to cure Covid-19. He downplayed its seriousness saying it was just a flu.
He undermined the wearing of masks etc. This has left the US with the highest infections at over 22 million with number of deaths over 370, 000.
THE FAKE POSTS MISINFORMING THE PUBLIC
A lot of people have followed in Trump’s footsteps, sending a lot of messages on social media with false claims and a potential to cause serious harm to those that will believe in them. I am sure you have seen such posts circulating most especially on WhatsApp groups and Facebook, a lot of people have sent them to me to comment on them. PLEASE THEY ARE NOT GENUINE, THEY ARE FAKE!
*1) ONE CLAIMING TO BE FROM ITALIAN MINISTRY OF HEALTH.
This one claims to be from the Italian ministry of health which did autopsies on the Covid-19 corpses, which is said to be against WHO guidelines and that their findings were showing corona virus is not a virus but a huge bacterium, some 5G connection which I have debunked many times.
Further, it says that this bacteria causes blood clots form. Yes it is true clots do form in the people who suffer from Covid-19, and it is true anticoagulants are used but it is the virus that leads to the formation of these clots and not the bacteria, I written about this in one of my Articles entitled “COVID-19 AND BLOOD CLOTS.”
Corona virus is a virus and not a bacteria. I discussed this in the series” KNOW THINE ENEMY.” The misleading post even claims ICU and ventilators were never needed to treat Covid-19 patients. This is cleary from someone who has never seen what severe Covid-19 can do, there is no place to handle a severe form of Covid-19 than in ICU. Please don’t circulate such lies. If Italy knew the cure how come they have over close to 2.5 million cases and over 78, 000?
*2) CLAIMING
TO BE FROM A ZAMBAIN DOCTOR’S PERSPECTIVE
The other common post or article is one claiming to be from one “Zambia Doctor” talking about steaming as a cure for Covid-19 and proposing some time frame for that. In as much as steaming maybe beneficial, it is not a cure, I repeat it is not a cure for Covid-19. I will discuss steaming in details in the coming articles.
The fake article suggests that steaming can cure the Covid-19 and gives a one- week programme to do, “if we all adopt this practice for a week the deadly virus will be eradicated,” its reads in part.
It talks about specific temperature at which to steam to kill he virus, I’m afraid this put a lot of people at risk of sustaining facial burns and other complications.
It also claims the entire public health system knows about this but is not sharing information to the public so as to take advantage of the pandemic.
Of course there are few who may have selfishly benefitted at the expense of the hardworking many and people should learn to draw a line between the politics, the plunder, the pandemic and the professionals fighting it on the ground.
Anyway, if this was the cure and the health care workers know about it how come they are also dying from the same, professors, doctors, nurses, etc. have died and are dying from Covid-19, including their relatives, how would they let this happen if they knew the cure?
Please whenever you see these fake posts please post this article debunking them. Please fellow citizens, Covid-19 is a real disease caused by a real virus and to date has no cure.
Vaccines are being given in the hope that people will have immunity against the virus but we are yet to see how these will work out.
There is still a lot to be known about this disease and the virus that causes it. But whatever is scientifically known and globally agreed upon at the moment is shared for everyone to read and not kept a secret.
I repeat, please go to the official page of WHO.
If there are people that wants this pandemic to end its Front liners, at least I do. We don’t live normal lives during this time, it’s not easy taking care of Covid-19 patients day in day out, the clothing, the masks, the stress from the dying etc, it’s a lot that really drains us physically and mentally, we are tired we want this all to end.
Please we are not your enemies but your servants, have you forgotten we are even your sons and daughters, your relatives, please trust us, we don’t mean you any harm but good.
ALUTA CONTINUA, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES, PLEASE:
*MASK UP! *OBSERVE HAND HYGIENE!
*SOCIALISE WISELY!
And because you care I believe you shall share.