The Covid-19 pandemic almost feels like there are two separate viruses spreading

The Covid-19 pandemic almost feels like there are two separate viruses spreading.

Since the first reports of the disease began to emerge from China last winter, the world’s population has been infected physically by the virus itself, but also in the form of misinformation, fake news, conspiracy theory and superstition. Both strains can prove deadly.

Disinformation encourages people to act in ways that risk their health – such as wearing gloves instead of washing hands. The virus can also be speeded by ignoring safety measures due to unusual theories of what might protect you.

In the USA, a man died in March after mistaking a fish-tank cleaner for a supposed coronavirus treatment, hydroxychloroquine. In Iran, over 700 people have perished since February from drinking methanol in the mistaken belief that it is a cure.

One pandemic has been spread by international travel and social contact; another has been spread over the internet and social media. These infections can feed into and sustain one another.

WhatsApp messages, such as those promising that Covid-19 can be cured by drinking a bowl of freshly-boiled garlic water, are all over the globe, as are spoof videos on YouTube, where medical fakery can be identified and removed, but fevered conspiracies are harder to nip in the bud.

On Twitter, feverish theories about the virus being beamed out by 5G telephone masts – amplified on TV by Eamonn Holmes, who refused to dismiss them out of hand – has led to vandalism and arson.

“It’s very easy to say it is not true because it suits the state narrative,” said Holmes on ITV’s This Morning show after hearing about the 5G hysteria. “What I don’t accept is mainstream media immediately slapping that down as not true when they don’t know it’s not true.”

Ofcom recently estimated that over half of the adult UK population had been exposed to fake Covid-19 news in a single week. Among it all there is naïve and possibly well-meant ignorance but also trouble-making and selfish hoaxing from a variety of motives and origins, all thriving in a fearful atmosphere of almost medieval superstition.

The internet companies have been trying to respond by slowing the spread of suspiciously “viral” messages and blocking untruthful and damaging data, but it is difficult to hold back a tsunami of disinformation – especially when worried people seek it out. Who was it that said a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth had put its boots on? Well, it has never been truer than now.

Politicians have called for sharing fake news to be made a criminal offence. “In some ways, this is the first public health crisis in the age of social media disinformation, and therefore it requires a different response,” said the former chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media And Sport (DCMS) Select Committee, Tory MP Damian Collins, calling for penalties for knowingly passing on dodgy  information.

Beyond confusion and falsehood, criminal elements quickly worked out that where there is fear there is profit.  They set off to scam the vulnerable out of cash by deception – often as the con-artists going door-to-door offering pensioners (fake) virus testing kits, or posing as medics and lying their way indoors to steal money.

Our local communities are at risk in this situation of double jeopardy. We can take sensible measures to prevent further spread of the disease, such as wearing facemasks and placing social distancing markers on the ground outside our shops and in the aisles. We can encourage the use of hand sanitizer by hanging a bottle at the entrance and practice rigorous hygiene in the workplace. We can keep journeys to a minimum and encourage customers to order from home – which many retailers have helped to make possible by quickly becoming a grocery delivery service, especially for the elderly and vulnerable.

These physical measures are important for putting friction on the spread of the disease. But retailers can also aid their communities in another way: by becoming a hub of anti Covid-19 fake news and a place to go for real facts and clear information.

During this crisis corner shops have seen their importance grow as people stay home and live more locally than they have done in over a century. Even behind masks and with social distancing in place, there seems to be a renewed sense of community.

People are talking to each other again and the storekeeper is the person they all chat to, a person they trust and someone who knows more locals than probably anybody else.

This is an important, even vital position that independent retailers – 50,000 of them across the British Isles – now find themselves in.

Storekeepers, with the right tools and information, can be relied upon to point people in the right direction and warn about coronavirus scams, fake news and frauds.

With reliable knowledge shopkeepers can also reassure people who might be distressed and worried about their situation when they feel isolated and insecure.

It is therefore important that we get clear information about what not to believe and who not to trust, so it can be passed on to customers – especially the most vulnerable in the communities.

The government has pulled together several very useful sources for dealing with virus misinformation at all levels, which can help to help protect and reassure your customers. Your first stop should be the SHAREChecklist website (https://sharechecklist.gov.uk/) which explains what disinformation is and how to protect against it.

From there you can link to a clearing house of news and rumour fakery, Full Fact (https://fullfact.org/), endorsed by the government, and containing an exhaustive take-down of each fake fact about the virus by the date it appeared. It’s all the (genuine) information you need in one place. There is also a final arbiter of medical facts at the NHS’s own Covid-19 website (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/).

If we can send people to these, half the problem of disinformation and fake news would be solved.

Try thinking of the problem as a pyramid of lies. At the top are the big ones – that the virus is man-made and is going to kill everybody, for example. According to Full Fact, above, the rumour was started when a Japanese professor at Kyoto University was falsely quoted. Professor Dr Tasuku Honjo has denied saying this and there is no evidence that he ever did. Covid-19 is a nasty virus but not a bio-weapon. Look it up for yourself.

Nonetheless, Professor Philip Howard of the Oxford Internet Institute says that a quarter of the UK population still believes it is a deliberate attack by one government or another, or by some shady organisation.

About halfway down the pyramid are all the many wackdoodle ideas, rumours and conspiracies that live on the web, like 5G or Nostradamus, followed by routine medical ignorance and ill-formed beliefs. The truth is that as a virus COVID-19 cannot be treated by antibiotics (or by carrying a rabbit’s foot); masks do work to slow the spread of disease; and yes, try not to touch your face when outside.

At the base of the pyramid are the everyday fakeries – and more likely cons – that probably affect ordinary people the most. Here much good in the community can be done by handing out practical advice at a local level: Do not buy coronavirus testing kits sold door-to-door because they do not exist. Do not answer your phone to numbers you do not recognize, or if you do, end the call as soon as possible and do not give away any personal information or passwords. Only talk to your bank or other body if you call them first and dial the number yourself – they are all far too busy at the moment to call you.

And advise people to not allow into the house any stranger who claims to be making a delivery if they don’t know about it and haven’t placed the order themselves. Local stores are doing a lot of deliveries but will always arrange beforehand.

And remember, lies and conspiracy theories usually start online before spreading through the population as rumour and falsehood.

Just like a virus, in fact.

Don’t be infected by fake news.