Read on Twitter
OK, this stuff makes me cross. COVID-19 is serious enough without reporting research in a way that scares people unnecessarily. For example, this piece from The Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/virus-can-live-28-days-on-phone-screens-5tlnfn9wd?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_102&utm_medium=email&utm_content=102_10801909&CMP=TNLEmail_120896_10801909_102
Alarming, right? (thread)
Alarming, right? (thread)
Australian researchers have discovered that the virus remains viable on surfaces like bank notes and phones (my immunologist wife likes to remind me that viruses aren’t “alive” per se) in the right conditions. OK. Scary stuff. But…
The phrase “in the right conditions” is doing an awful lot of work in paragraph two. It really is. What are those “conditions”? Let’s leap to the penultimate paragraph, where we learn something quite significant:
“The Australian researchers conducted their analysis in the dark because it is known that ultraviolet light harms the virus.”
In. The. Dark.
Because UV degrades the virus’s viability. You know, the thing that’s found in, say, *sunlight*.
In. The. Dark.
Because UV degrades the virus’s viability. You know, the thing that’s found in, say, *sunlight*.
FWIW, the BBC gets this right: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54500673 They explain this in the third sentence, and then contextualise the actual risk. It’s an important finding - the virus is clearly more robust than influenzas, for example. But it doesn’t mean what people will think it does.
I bet I’ll be seeing people in Facebook groups frantically talking about it surviving on surfaces for a month, thanks to the headlining and story construction of these reports.
Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face unnecessarily. But worry more about aerosol transmission.
Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face unnecessarily. But worry more about aerosol transmission.
This was still bugging me a week later, so I turned this thread into an *actual* blog post: https://onemanandhisblog.com/2020/10/how-poor-story-construction-can-spread-covid-19-misinformation/
