If you’ve dared to browse online over the past few months, you’d have been hard pressed to miss one form or other of the conspiracy theories, home-made remedies, and unsubstantiated DO’s and DON’Ts surrounding Covid-19.

While this outbreak is unprecedented in many ways, the myths surrounding it are not. In fact, we have a long history of misinfodemia: the onslaught of false and harmful misinformation which follows health crises.

From Zika to Ebola, unfounded rumours about previous health crises have sought to dissuade people from believing public advice, or even seeking the treatment they need. 

In moments of crisis, we tend to actively look for information. But stress, combined with a well-documented aversion towards uncertainty, makes it harder to distinguish the facts from the noise.

Experimental research has shown that seeing conspiracy theories has a real impact on belief. Once established they are extremely difficult to correct. 

In the outside world, we have seen how diseases like measles are making a comeback due to the long-standing anti-vaccine myth. According to the World Health Organization, vaccine hesitancy is one of the world’s top 10 public health risks.  

In every case, having the latest medical evidence is only half the fight. The other is about earning the public’s trust. This takes time, patience, and a long-term campaign that takes into account the media consumption practices and value systems of the public. 

As we continue to face confusing and contradictory information about the new coronavirus, our latest briefing reviews academic research to explore how health misinformation travels, and what we, and you, can do to fight it.

Most importantly: take care over what you share

Share-worthy posts might be more likely to provoke the most intense reaction from friends and family, but they can make us lose track of accuracy. 

Our briefing details a 2020 experiment in the US, which asked participants to choose which posts they would share from a list of 30 Covid-19 stories. Asked simply what they would share, participants selected false posts about as frequently as they selected true ones. 

It’s important to take care over what you share. The same experiment found that participants who were first asked to think about accuracy chose more accurate posts to share.

As a Full Fact reader you can make a difference. Share our briefing today to help more people access good information.