False claims about COVID-19 must be repeatedly debunked

R esearchers at the University of Toronto, Dartmouth College, the University of Exeter and the University of Kent have found that fact checking can quickly correct misperceptions about COVID-19 - but that beliefs in wrong information often return. The study, published in the journal  Nature Human Behaviour , asked respondents from the United States, Great Britain and Canada to rate the perceived accuracy of four claims on COVID-19 that have been debunked by scientific and public health authorities: that the Chinese government created the coronavirus as a bioweapon; that a group funded by Bill Gates patented the coronavirus; that antibiotics are effective in preventing and treating COVID-19; and that the medication hydroxychloroquine is proven to cure or prevent COVID-19. They found that fact checks did indeed reduce people's misperceptions, but that the changes did not persist over time. "Our findings suggest that fact checks can successfully reduce misperceptions about COVID-19 immediately after people read them," said study co-author Peter Loewen , director of University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and a professor in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. "Now that we know those misperceptions often return, we can expect that convincing someone to adopt new understanding about COVID-19 may include setbacks. We also know that frequent exposure helps so what this tells us is that the best approach is a long term strategy." Study participants shared political and demographic information about themselves and rated the accuracy of both true and false claims about COVID-19.