Ivermectin and the Insanity of Fake News
By: Renzo Guevara
Information is a valuable resource in today’s online world. Anyone can post anything and anything can send whatever message it wants to send. All it takes is one person to believe what they’re seeing until it spreads and spreads. As if one pandemic isn’t bad enough already, now we have to deal with a digital one.
Trust me.
COVID-19 sucks. The world seemed to shut down and 2020 just got bumped up on everyone’s worst year ever list. For a moment, we were all scrambling for what to do about it. Vaccines weren’t properly developed and so we all had to find out what were the best preventive measures.
Horses to the rescue.
Ever heard of bananas being a cure? Or how 5G helps spread the virus? Honestly, you can get a solid afternoon’s worth of entertainment by just looking up COVID-19 myths. Some of the things people think of are wild.
Probably one of the most divisive of them all is the use of a deworming, anti-parasitic drug that’s commonly used for animals for treatment and prevention against the Coronavirus.
The conversation started when Australian researchers discovered a drug that was said to have the ability to kill the Coronavirus. A miracle drug that can cure a deadly virus within just 48 hours? It was an easy sell to the public. Too easy.
But… I read somewhere…
No. Stop it. Fake news has been a constant problem ever since humans found out that the internet exists. The fact that anyone can pull out their phone and say something like a piece of plastic hanging in front of your face can help protect you from the pandemic is ridiculous.
It’s even worse if people don’t know how to verify for themselves.
I said before that if I send to my family group chat that bulletproof vests can help fight back Covid, the older people would believe it. It was clearly meant for a joke but after seeing how gullible people are on the internet, I might not be too far off the mark with that one.
Is ivermectin a miracle cure for the pandemic? As much as we all want it to be, no it is not. There is data to prove why and yet there are still some who are too stubborn to see it.
FDA has gone as far as to take their warnings to social media, laughably so if i may add. As funny as it may be, it’s also proof of just how much people are so easily fooled into believing what they see first despite the countless credible sources that say otherwise.
Get well soon.
Unfortunately, you just can’t change some minds. Whether it be political, personal, or a matter of convenience, an individual’s ideology is one tricky nut to crack once it settles on what it wants.
Fight back. (Responsibly)
Nothing’s going to happen if we ridicule the people who are victimized by fake news. We’ve all been affected at some point. What matters is how we deal with it.
The root cause of fake news is the lack of proper knowledge. You tell a kid that Santa is real, they’ll believe you because they know no better. Would you make fun of them? That’s mean. Educate > retaliate.
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