The World Health Organization says that 3.4% of reported COVID-19 patients worldwide have died – a global fatality figure that President Donald Trump dismissed as “a false number.” It’s not a false number, although experts say Trump has a point that the fatality rate may ultimately be quite a bit less than 3.4%.
Facing a declining stock market and criticism from Democrats, President Donald Trump and other officials have minimized the risks of the coronavirus to the U.S. and given inaccurate and misleading information about the new virus.
A viral meme falsely claims Sen. Bernie Sanders “supported” Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis and “accused” the hostages of “being CIA spies.” Sanders was affiliated with a political party that criticized U.S. policy on Iran, but there’s no evidence he expressed those beliefs.
An online conspiracy theory falsely claims that Democratic leaders coordinated the June attacks on two oil tankers and a U.S. drone and that President Donald Trump caught them in the act. The Trump administration has placed the blame squarely on Iran.
President Donald Trump suggested that the new coronavirus would “go away” in April, as temperatures warm. While some viruses are seasonal, it’s not yet clear if the new virus will follow the same pattern — and experts caution against banking on the weather to resolve the outbreak.
Online posts claim that vitamin C can “stop” the new coronavirus. While it’s true that vitamin C can have a marginal effect on warding off a cold, there’s no evidence that it can stop or treat the new coronavirus.
Online posts falsely claim the new coronavirus can be cured by drinking one bowl of freshly boiled garlic water. That’s not true; there is no cure for the virus.
Online posts have claimed to reveal various “cures” for the new coronavirus. Some are benign, like eating boiled garlic, while others are potentially dangerous, like drinking chlorine dioxide, an industrial bleach. Neither will cure the virus.
Joe Biden falsely claimed that a hot mic at a NATO reception caught “leaders of the free world” privately saying “they didn’t think [President Donald Trump] knew anything, they didn’t trust him et cetera.” Biden has turned Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mild ribbing about Trump holding long, unscheduled press interviews into something far worse.
China first reported a new strain of viral pneumonia in the city of Wuhan on Dec. 31, and, within a month, the internet was infected with misinformation about the illness, now called the 2019 novel coronavirus.