Donald Trump is biggest single source of coronavirus misinformation researchers say

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Donald Trump is the biggest individual source of coronavirus misinformation, according to a new study.

Researchers at Cornell University found that mentions of the president were responsible for 38 per cent of the overall “misinformation conversation” and the single largest factor in what they branded an “infodemic.”

“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around Covid,” Sarah Evanega, the director of the Cornell Alliance for Science and the study’s lead author told the New York Times.

“That’s concerning in that there are real-world dire health implications.”

The Cornell experts analysed 38 million English language articles about Covid-19 and found that only 16.4 per cent of the misinformation was “fact checking.”

The study, which was released on Thursday, is the first look at coronavirus misinformation in online and traditional media.

Researchers found 11 main topics of misinformation, including conspiracies that the pandemic was started in Wuhan by people eating bat soup, or that 5G was responsible.

But they say that the biggest topic was “miracle cures”, including Mr Trump’s comments about anti-malarial drugs and disinfectant.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” said Mr Trump said at a White House coronavirus press conference in April.

“As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

The “cures” topic reportedly accounted for more misinformation than the other ten topics combined.

More than 207,000 people have died of the virus in the US with more than 7.2m cases confirmed.

The study looked at articles published in the media between 1 January and 26 May and found that 1.1 million of the 38m studied, or 3 per cent, included false information.