New Delhi: Besides crippling the medical healthcare infrastructure of India, the second wave of COVID-19 additionally got here with a faux information plague on the web, in keeping with a not too long ago performed survey by docs from Rochester, New York, and Pune, India.
The scientific examine revealed within the Journal of Medical Internet Research a peer-reviewed journal, identified that ~30% of Indians relied on WhatsApp to obtain data round COVID-19.
Around 30% of Indians fact-checked lower than 50% of messages earlier than forwarding, the survey revealed, including that simply 13% of the respondents by no means fact-checked messages earlier than sharing to others.
However, solely a handful of WhatsApp customers have been chargeable for the majority of forwarding of each right and pretend data round COVID-19. The survey stated that in a day solely 14% of respondents forwarded three or extra messages to others. Just 5% shared 9 or extra messages.
In phrases of age teams, Indians over 65 have been in some way extra more likely to get misinformation. Unfortunately, the age group was additionally extra more likely to consider within the faux messages and even to answer them.
24-27% of respondents admitted that they’d thought-about utilizing natural, ayurvedic or homoeopathic COVID-19 treatments whereas 7-8% really tried them to battle the illness. Users beneath the age of 25 have been the least more likely to obtain faux messages, the examine famous.
