Expert Public Health & Medical Information
If you have symptoms, self-isolate from others and call your health care provider or the GHC Nurse Connect line at 608-661-7350 immediately for advice on where to go for care.
- American Academy of Pediatrics - Healthy Children: Guide for FamiliesRecommendations to keep families healthy during the Coronavirus outbreak.
- From World Health Organization - Updates on Novel Coronavirus - COVID-19Questions answered, travel advice, briefings from WHO.
- Social Distancing & Self Quarantine Info: Johns Hopkins MedicineExplanations from the world-renowned medical school and health organization
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control - CDCLeading U.S. authority on communicable diseases
- World Health Organization - Coronavirus InfoGeneral info about Coronaviruses
- Semantic Scholar - COVID-19In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Allen Institute for AI has partnered with leading research groups to prepare and distribute the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a free resource of over 29,000 scholarly articles, including over 13,000 with full text, about COVID-19 and the coronavirus family of viruses for use by the global research community.
More Misinformation Sources
- Don’t Fall for These Myths About CoronavirusMisconceptions about what can protect you are becoming just as contagious as the virus.
- How to Spot Coronavirus MisinformationTime magazine article on how to spot misinformation
- How Wikipedia Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus MisinformationA group of hawk-eyed experts operate on a special track to monitor medical information on the site.
- Misinformation Around The CoronavirusNPR's Michel Martin speaks with Peter Adams of the News Literacy Project about how to discern misinformation around the coronavirus.
- Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemicFrequently updated and well cited Wikipedia entry on COVID-19
- The Simplest Way to Spot Coronavirus Misinformation on Social MediaA digital literacy expert shares his method
Spotting Misinformation
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Spotting Coronavirus Misinformation
It's crucial to stay informed with high quality information. While there are great resources available misinformation abounds. Reading and sharing reliable and accurate resources related to COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") is important for everyone's health and safety. Here are some tools to get started.
Developed by Washington State University Digital Literacy Expert Mike Caulfield, SIFT involves four easy steps:
- Stop
- What's your initial reaction? Does it make you angry, sad, afraid, worried, etc? STOP and move on to investigate the source.
- Investigate the source
- HOVER over the link to the news story, Twitter or Facebook profile, etc. Check the source to see whether its legitimate and verified or someone impersonating a trustworthy source
- Add "Wikipedia" to a website url to find more information about the source to see if it's legitimate or try a Google search for the source
- Find better coverage.
- When you are suspicious that a source doesn't seem plausible search for other coverage. Do a quick Google search on the topic. If no one else is reporting on the topic that's a red flag. Sometimes there is some truth to the story but the facts have been manipulated in some way. Find a more factual source to read and share.
- Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context
- Check the date on the article. Information that perhaps was true even a few hours ago might be outdated now. Make sure you search for the most current information on a topic.
- Click through. When legitimate content is shared, the person posting it often adds a comment. This can frame or distort the facts in a misleading way. Always evaluate the original content before drawing conclusions.
Incorporating these easy basic methods into your everyday social media routine can help combat the spread of misinformation.
For more information on the SIFT method visit: https://infodemic.blog/
For more information literacy information visit the Madison College Libraries guide: https://libguides.madisoncollege.edu/InfoLitStudents