By Justine Coleman
A study released Thursday determined that President Trump was “the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation” during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Cornell University study analyzed more than 38 million articles about the pandemic between Jan. 1 and May 26 that were published in English-language media around the world. Researchers determined that mentions of Trump made up 37.9 percent of “the overall misinformation conversation,” more than anything else.
The study concluded that Trump was “likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation ‘infodemic,’ ” as the World Health Organization has called COVID-19 misinformation.
“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid,” Sarah Evanega, the study’s head author, told The New York Times.
The study describes itself as the first comprehensive study on coronavirus misinformation in traditional and online media.
Out of the 38 million articles, more than 1.1 million — just less than 3 percent — included misinformation.
The research pointed out 11 widespread misinformation or conspiracy theories such as the theory that Democrats created the pandemic to concur with Trump’s impeachment trial and the claim that attributed the outbreak in Wuhan, China, to people who consumed bats in soup.
The most common misinformation was about “miracle cures” for COVID-19, which appeared more often than the 10 other categories combined.
For example, in March, the president touted the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine, despite the fact there there was not proof of its effectiveness against COVID-19.