“Infodemic” COVID 19: More Pandemic than the Virus

Patel, Mohan P; Kute, Vivek B.; Agarwal, Sanjay K.

Coronavirus disease (COVID 19), which was started in Wuhan, China in December 2019 has become a pandemic, leading to unprecedented risk to the human race. However, fear wave accelerating ahead of pandemic worldwide is driven by prejudice or erroneous information. This has been termed as “infodemics” by WHO considering its fake nature, which triggered discrimination and stigma of disease along with the failure of rapid response policies. Additionally, the lack of adequate pandemic preparedness plans identified in many countries may be responsible for infodemics. NonCOVID medical illnesses have taken a back seat at many places while implementing COVID 19 control strategies and patients are diverted to COVID 19 screening hospitals leading to a potential health crisis. Now, we also have to focus on mitigating infodemics and its implications at the social front while strategic planning to control current and future pandemics.