Misinformation Can Kill You
Ignorance and misinformation in times of crisis is dangerous
Misinformation. It’s floating in the air out there like an invisible virus.
There is tons of misinformation since the COVID 19 virus was unleashed in 2019: People panic that foreigners are the ones bringing disease.
People jump upon conspiracy bandwagons. People storm stores (in crowds) to buy out all the toilet paper.
Heads up, toilet paper is not a survival guarantee.
Then there are the lesser threads of ignorance that — although not so outlandish — that are that much more pervasive when woven into public discourse: People buying ineffective face masks that should be reserved for the sick, and for care providers. Then, there are judgments along the lines of “Who could have predicted this?” and “I can go to work because it’s just a common cold.”
We who study ecology and environment have warned for years that as part of our misuse of the planet, pandemics have been on their merry way for some time now. A Zoonotic virus jumps from animal to human host in those situations where you add wildlife trafficking and over-harvesting of species to jet airplanes and cheap cruises.
COVID 19 is believed to have begun in open wet markets in Wuhan, China. The trafficking of rare species, bats, pangolins, snakes, and palm civets, etc., is part and parcel of our upending of nature’s balance. It cannot be untangled from the Sixth Extinction, or the Climate Crisis. All are due to our impact upon a planet with finite boundaries.
David Quammen’s outstanding book, Spillover, was published in 2012. Prior to that books such as The Hot Zone, and The Coming Plague were out in the 1990’s. Each of these, and many more, are stuffed with details and knowledge about what we knew was coming.
How come the general public then, did not know? I think there are many factors.
Denial
People, having evolved as abstract thinkers and social species, reject bad news. This is a topic I write about frequently, it involves our confirmation bias, our need for reassurance, and our inability to embrace the “other.”