Mika Tabanera

Coronavirus’ Proxy War on Misinformation

In the Facebook senate hearing in the past year, House Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez pressed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about misinformation in the widely
popular social media platform. AOC claims that it’s very simple for politicians to lie and spread
misinformation as Facebook was lacking any type of fact checking programs on the site.
Zuckerberg agreed with AOC that political misinformation should be limited and even punished.
Even though this debate took place last year, misinformation is very prominent not only on social
media but also the news. The saying goes, you miss on the news-you’re uninformed, follow the
news-you’re misinformed. For every action, there are always consequences. But can a
politician’s strike at spreading misinformation be so dangerous that it threatens human lives?
About a week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, another suspected terrorist attack
became a public health crisis called the 2001 anthrax attacks, affecting media officials and those
in power. When this was made public, it became “arguable one of the most public and disruptive
public health emergencies of recent history.” [1] Americans wanted answers, mostly since it was
seen as a bioterrorist attack by al-Qaeda, and all that the Secretary of Health and Human Services
at the time can give up were speculations. Outlandish claims it was in the water of outdoor
streams, whereas he could not back this up with credible evidence. This misinformation led to a
domino effect of many other politicians and public doctors stating their opinion on the matter,
many contradicting each other. No one was in charge of conveying reliant information to the
public. This led to an influx of misinformation, causing a “heightened public concern and
widespread public outrage,” and a mistrust in public officials.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, brought it upon themselves
to resolve this predicament, so they created a set of guidelines to prevent any more confusion
amongst a public concern and likewise. Introducing the Crisis and Emergency Risk
Communication or CERC. This pamphlet was made shortly after the anthrax attacks, and from
this, the CDC learned from America’s mistakes. A correction the CDC implemented was to have
one primary person to be the “leader” of the crisis. Usually, a professional in the field is familiar
with the subject on which the crisis is based. For example, when the mob bosses were arrested in
New York, the District Attorney of New York, Rudy Giuliani, was the face you saw every time
the mob was announced. In this case of a biological threat, you’d want a doctor or a scientist to
be chosen to be in front of the cameras. If done correctly, the public would more than likely see
this spokesperson as credible and trustworthy.
According to the CERC, “It is difficult to capture all qualities of a good spokesperson…
However, it is not difficult to identify the qualities of a poor spokesperson.” One type of person
you usually do not want as a spokesperson is a politician, because they are not seen as credible
by those who oppose that politician.
In early 2020, the world was introduced to a new disease called coronavirus or
COVID-19. This would be the first time President of the United States Donald Trump would be
handling a public health crisis as coronavirus cases added up. President Trump chose the
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and National
Institute of Health (NIH), immunologist Doctor Anthony Fauci. He would become a regular at
White House press conferences. For the first few months, he was an influential spokesperson as
he was trusted amongst Americans, and everyone followed his safety precautions of social
distancing and wearing masks.
Fauci’s reign was to last, though, as President Trump had a very different view on this
virus. After the quarantine shutdown period ended across America, President Trump started to
contradict Dr. Fauci. Before the pandemic, scientists were unsure of the effectiveness of masks
on the spread of airborne transmission, but after much deliberation about this simple facial cloth,
it is one of the best preventative measures against the coronavirus. Despite this great news
receiving more affirmation by the World Health Organization, President Trump instead
contradicted the effectiveness of masks. “It’s going to be a voluntary thing. You can do it, you
don’t have to do it, I am choosing not to do it.” This would be the start of deliberate lies Trump
states during the many coronavirus press conferences, and would continually lead America down
this dark path of coronavirus proliferation. President Trump would continue to bash the
effectiveness of masks, reopen the country against his advisors’ wishes, and woefully claim that
the opposing party is “politicizing the coronavirus.” [2]
So how did Trump’s misinformation lead to a period of coronavirus outbreaks even
during warmer temperatures? Trump essentially took the spokesperson role from Dr. Fauci, and
those politically charged would blindly listen to him. “A CBS News Poll on March 21–23 found
that 90% of Republicans trusted the president to give accurate information about the
SARS-CoV-2 virus.” [4] This would spawn a slew of ignorance against the guidelines set forth
by Dr. Fauci and many other public health organizations. Masks have become the central point
of this battle between faithful mask wearers and mask rebels. As when anti-maskers go out in
public and are called out for not wearing a facial mask, they often would throw a tantrum and
verbally attack those that provoked them. President Trump has been pushing this phrase as he
doesn’t want to give up his comfort of breathing freely, and it’s obvious his constituents agree
with him. “A Florida woman stood up at a meeting…and declared, ‘I don’t wear a mask for the
same reason I don’t wear underwear, things gotta breathe.'” [3] Psychiatrist Margaret Seide goes
deeper into the mindset of an anti-masker, “Lots of people may feel like the mask is an
imposition on their life and feels uncomfortable, so if there is a public message that validates
that, you are going to tune in.” This “public message” is Trump’s voice. He is the main reason
anti-maskers exist and why coronavirus is still feasting on the American people to this day
because of the misinformation, he has spread across the country. Now we pay the price.
What started as a comment on a piece of cloth became a logo of “patriotism” against the
bondage of oxygen, has caused cases around the country to continually rise year round. The first
test was Memorial day weekend, where many Southerners refused to wear masks or socially
distance on public beaches and indoor dining. [5] This carelessness for one’s health and safety
has led to a huge spike of cases a week after this holiday, and many individual deaths in the
upcoming week. This attitude would lead to over 268,000 deaths in America and over 13 million
cases nationwide since the virus made landfall earlier this year. This is not a reason to be lying
to the general public, because you don’t feel comfortable wearing a mask, the highest office in
the land is to be set by role models, not selfish persons. President Trump’s reign of
misinformation will continually send our fellow countrymen and women to dance with death if
they continue to ignore the truth.
References:
[1]
C. (2014). Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication: Spokesperson. Retrieved December 01,
2020, from https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/ppt/CERC_Spokesperson.pdf
[2]
G. Y., & Gonsalves, G. (2020). Donald Trump: A political determinant of covid-19. Retrieved
December 01, 2020, from
https://covidaba.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Donald-Trump-a-political-determinant
-of-covid-19.pdf
[3]
Gillespie, C. (2020, July/August). Why Do Some People Refuse to Wear a Face Mask in Public?
Retrieved December 01, 2020, from
https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/face-mask-refuse-to-w
ear-one-but-why
[4]
Hahn, R. (2020, September 23). Estimating the COVID-Related Deaths Attributable to President
Trump’s Early Pronouncements About Masks. Retrieved December 01, 2020, from
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0020731420960345
[5]
Bhasin, T., Butcher, C., Gordon, E., Hallward, M. and LeFebvre, R. (2020), “Does Karen wear a
mask? The gendering of COVID-19 masking rhetoric”, International Journal of
Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 40 No. 9/10, pp. 929-937.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-07-2020-0293

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