Whether the earth is flat or round is an opinion. The idea and debate on the topic are held every day on social media platforms and in public forums, and more people talk about it every day. The topic isn’t dangerous in itself, but what if someone was so convinced that they set off to find out for themselves? Would that be dangerous? Probably so. Covid-19 and Vaccine information is the same way. Opinions on the topic are circulating, and many things are being labeled as misinformation.
For one, Covid-19 has a survival rate of 98% based on 194 million cases and 4.16 million deaths worldwide. While one end is too many, context is essential when discussing these topics, and recent findings are undoubtedly important. Overrepresentation of Covid-19 infection results, both false and vibrant, has been a talking point since the beginning of the pandemic, and it turns out they were right! On January 4th, 2021, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) said, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting patients and health care providers of the risk of false results, particularly false-negative results, with the Curative SARS-Cov-2 test” and “Innova Medical Group is recalling its SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test. Labeling distributed with certain configurations of the test includes performance claims that did not accurately reflect the performance estimates observed during the clinical studies of the tests. The performance characteristics of the test have not been adequately established, presenting a risk of false results.”
So, what does this mean? It means that “conspiracy theorists” were 100% correct when they said that Covid-19 tests showed false readings. This information was flagged as misinformation but turned out to be true. The same thing has come out about the “Lab Leak Theory.” Dr. Anthony Fauci received an email from Kristian Andersen, Scripps Research Translational Institute infectious disease expert, “The unusual features of the virus make up a tiny part of the genome (<0.1%), so one has to look closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features potentially look engineered.”
But I thought social media companies banned this type of talk? They did. It was a partisan misinformation campaign just like Hydroxychloroquine and face mask efficiency. This leaves one to wonder when medical information and freedom of choice is going to come back? Probably not any time soon.
White House Communications Director was speaking to MSNBC and said, “The other thing the President had pointed out and has spoken to when he was asked about this yesterday is it is also the responsibility of the people creating the content, and again, I would go back to, you know, there are conservative news outlets who are creating irresponsible content, that’s sharing misinformation about the virus that’s getting shared on these platforms.” If current data and analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic are any representation of what information was accurate in 2020, it’s that the “misinformation” was essentially correct, or at least pretty close.
It should be alarming to Republicans, Democrats, or any political party that stands for freedom of speech and press freedom. The Constitution wasn’t created for individuals to speak only what is true. It was made so you could have a wrong opinion and take it to the grave with you no matter who proves you wrong. It is the stepping stone to a communist regime in the making, and I have every right to say that.
