Abstract
The world has been changed irrevocably by the infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. COVID-19 affects everyone everywhere. A separate and significant, though not necessarily as infectious, malady affecting many, though not all, individuals worldwide, is “Fake News”, known alternatively as yellow journalism, junk news, pseudo news, false news, alternative facts, hoaxes, misinformation, disinformation, fabricated news, corrupt news, unfathomable nonsense, or outright lies, which are typically based on provably false statements, and are distributed widely through mainstream news media and social media. The opinion piece presents a brief history of COVID-19 and fake news, and existing international efforts to deal with each of these infections, and to encourage critical comments, concepts and ideas.
Highlights
The world has been changed irrevocably by the infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019
The following section presents a brief history of COVID-19 and fake news, and international scientific, medical, and health care efforts to deal with each of these infections
Examples of Trump’s confused tweets containing fake news on Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un and nuclear weapons are examined by means of a data mining technique, sentiment analysis, in Allen and McAleer (2018a)
Summary
The world has been changed irrevocably by the infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. As of 11 November 2020, according to Worldometers (2020), there were more than 50 million reported infections and 1.26 million deaths worldwide, both of which are almost certain to be substantially lower than the true figures, with around 20% of each in the USA alone. A separate and significant, though not necessarily as infectious, malady affecting many, though not all, individuals worldwide, is “Fake News”, known alternatively as yellow journalism, junk news, pseudo news, alternative facts, hoaxes, misinformation, and disinformation (Wikipedia, 2020a). The following section presents a brief history of COVID-19 and fake news, and international scientific, medical, and health care efforts to deal with each of these infections.
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