Can you Spot the Fake News?

Article from Morristown Minute.

Whatever your odd beliefs and falsities may be, there's no doubt another lunatic out there in the world agrees with you. It's a phenomenon called the internet. And it's toxic.

Personally, I find it hard to trust information gathered anywhere else but the library. For at least the library has the decency to separate information between non-fiction and fiction. On the internet, everything is non-fiction. It makes sense, in this online world we're living in, that a decent portion of our country's population seems to think our government has created the COVID-19 vaccine as population control and refuses to vaccinate. This example is just one reason why the internet phenomenon is so toxic; it's literally killing us.

So now that you know your life is on the line, can you tell which article below is fact and which is fiction?

#1

From CBS New York, published 28 September 2021:

"NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There was a surprising finding in a new study that shows certain nasal sprays used by millions of people may actually protect against severe COVID-19. [. . .]

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic looked at records from more than 72,000 adults in their system and found that patients who used intranasal corticosteroids prior to COVID-19 illness were 22% less likely to be hospitalized, 23% less likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit and 24% less likely to die from COVID-19 during hospitalization."

#2

From The Local, published 21 September 2021:

"Covid-19 in Norway can now be compared to the flu thanks to vaccines, says health chief.

Coronavirus can now be categorized as one of several respiratory illnesses with seasonal variation thanks to the success of the country's vaccination campaign, Geir Bukholm, infection control director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), has said.

For the past year and a half, Covid-19 has been classed as a generally dangerous disease. However, this could change soon as the assistant director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), Geir Bukholm, has said the coronavirus can now be put in the same category as illnesses such as flu, common colds, and RS (respiratory syncytial virus).
“We are now in a new phase where we must look at the coronavirus as one of several respiratory diseases with seasonal variation,” Bukholm told paper VG.
Last week the Ministry of Health and Social Care asked the NIPH to assess whether Covid-19 was still a dangerous disease.
While the NIPH has yet to return its findings, its assistant director has made it clear that the danger of Covid will be downgraded."

First things first, #1. It sounds like another COVID-19 fake news article. There have been a lot of these floating around since COVID first showed up on the map. The first, easiest step to checking the validity of the information presented, go to snopes.com. Snopes is a fact-checking and news website that'll get right down to the truth without a political or social leaning. If you tried to check this out, you were out of luck, snopes.com had nothing. The next thing you can do, look at the author and website. CBS New York is legit, accredited. The author is Dr. Max Gomez, who after a quick google search looks like he knows what he's talking about. Our next move is to look into the study mentioned. The article said it was a study by researchers at "Cleveland Clinic," so I searched for this study using google scholar and found it in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Read through the study and you will find it was an observational analysis of over 70,000 patients who had COVID-19 and were treated with or without the regular use of nasal sprays (intranasal corticosteroids (INCS)). Conclusions found that a statistically significant number of patients treated with intranasal corticosteroids (nasal spray) were less likely to be hospitalized with severe COVID -19, or die as a result of the disease. The study's findings say that more "randomized control trials are needed to determine if INCS reduces the risk for severe outcomes related to COVID-19."

All in all, this one checks out true.

# 1 sources:

https://newsroom.clevelandclin...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

Now for #2.

First, a short origin. After 561 days of lockdown, Norway became the third European nation to lift COVID-19 lockdowns following a fall in cases and surge in vaccinations. Following the decision to reopen, the European website The Local published an article claiming Norwegian health officials have reclassified COVID-19 to a disease akin to the common flu. Social media took the story and ran with it, and eventually, another new outlet kicked it up and began reporting on how COVID-19 was no more dangerous than the flu according to Norwegian health officials. Despite showing up on two popular news sites, the story was very much false. Norwegian health officials did not reclassify COVID-19 or say it was just as harmless as the common seasonal flu. The rumor spread so strong across Europe it even reached FOX News in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health issued a statement saying, "Our position, as stated in the news article, is that at this point in the pandemic we must start approaching covid-19 as one of several respiratory diseases circulating with seasonal variation. This means that the control measures that will be applicable for various respiratory diseases will require the same level of societal preparedness,” wrote the health agency.

“This does not mean that illness from coronavirus and the seasonal flu are similar. On an individual level, people must receive the correct treatment for the specific disease. We will be continuously following the epidemiology of both covid-19 and other respiratory diseases and will be prepared to react differently circumstances worsen.”

So this story turns out to be false through means of misrepresentation and the good-old-fashion game of telephone.

Check this out on snopes.com/fact-check

Here's the point, it's hard to tell what's true or what some weirdo made up and posted on the internet. So knowing where you can check your sources, or how to run your own little background check, is immeasurably useful in today's digital age. Don't take anyone's word for truth, look it up. Google is both your friend and your enemy. Don't let yourself be a victim of misinformation. It kills.

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