Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been far from perfect, but we have a few factors working in our benefit: strong public services like universal health-care coverage, a social safety net in the form of CERB payments, and comparatively less politicization of mask-wearing and physical distancing mandates than our southern neighbours. But the social services that have protected Canadians during COVID-19 are not guaranteed, and public sector funds are continually under threat, like in the case of health-care and education funding. Moving forward, Canadians will have to consider how funding priorities will need to change so that we remain prepared for unexpected crises — even after the pandemic is over.
Cuts to health care have loomed large in some provinces in recent years, including in Ontario and Alberta. In 2019, the Ontario government released a plan that included cuts to health-care spending and privatization efforts that advocates said would increase crowding in hospitals and reduce the ability to adequately care for patients. The cuts came after several decades of stagnation in the province’s health-care sector; Ontario had 30,000 hospital beds in 2019 — the same number it has had since 1999, despite the fact the population has since grown by 27 per cent.
Cuts to public education have also been seen. With widespread misinformation circulating about the virus over the past six months, the critical thinking skills, media literacy, and science education that children learn in school is more important than ever and should not be overlooked. Despite this, education budgets were recently slashed in Alberta, part of a larger attack on the public sector in the province. The cuts will result in an estimated 1,400 fewer full-time teaching positions, while schools in the province are being told to dip into their savings to pay for any COVID-19-related costs.
Investing in the resources of most value to us — like health-care services that are agile enough to respond to major public health crises, education campaigns that can help fight against misinformation, and universal basic income to ensure that Canadians are not living in poverty regardless of their employment status — are just a few of the steps Canada can take to prepare for the post-pandemic future.
Conversely, funding for other services that do not serve the goals of health, safety, and equality should be reconsidered. Calls from supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement to re-allocate police department funding to other public services, such as social workers, mental-health response teams, and drug counselling services, are one such example. In many cities in Canada, police departments are often the most expensive line item on city budgets despite a long history of police violence against racialized Canadians, especially Black and Indigenous people. Moving these funds to other services that are more beneficial to the community as a whole is one move in the right direction.
If some scientific predictions are right, the COVID-19 pandemic could be just the first example of similar crises in coming years. Anthony Fauci and David Morens, two leading voices on COVID-19 at the the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S., recently published an article in the journal Cell describing how the novel coronavirus could be the start of a new age of pandemics caused by environmental degradation and globalization. “We remain at risk for the foreseeable future. COVID-19 is among the most vivid wake-up calls in over a century,” they write. “It should force us to begin to think in earnest and collectively about living in more thoughtful and creative harmony with nature, even as we plan for nature’s inevitable, and always unexpected, surprises.”
Many Canadians have gained new perspectives over the course of the pandemic, having come together at protests and witnessing the interconnectedness of a variety of socially damaging policies and practices like police violence, discrimination, misinformation, and health-care inequality. Canada’s post-pandemic reality should reflect these new insights, starting with our funding priorities.
COVID-19 has brought to light some of the glaring inequalities present in Canada when it comes to accessing health care. Disparities in social determinants of health like housing, food, education, and income levels stand in the way of achieving a truly equal health-care system, and racialized Canadians — especially those who are Black or Indigenous — are among the most affected by these inequities.
But even when BIPOC Canadians are able to access the care they need, they face yet another hurdle: ingrained racism within the health-care system linked to a history of colonization that significantly impacts the diagnosis, treatment, and quality of care that they receive.
For example, there was a series of incidents in British Columbia — first reported in June — in which doctors and nurses played a “game” to guess the blood alcohol level of Indigenous patients who visited the emergency room, prompting an investigation and condemnation from Indigenous groups. The game was referred to as “The Price is Right” among staff, with participants trying to guess the exact blood alcohol level of patients.
Another example is the 2008 death of Brian Sinclair, an Indigenous man who arrived in a Winnipeg emergency room and was ignored by staff for 34 hours until he eventually died of a bladder infection. Staff at the hospital stated that they had assumed Sinclair was intoxicated and “sleeping it off” in the waiting room. In 2017, a group of doctors and academics released a report which concluded that the cause of Sinclair’s death was the racism he experienced as an Indigenous man.
These are just two of the many instances of anti-Indigenous racism baked into our health system that prevent Indigenous people from accessing equitable health care. And because of this, some Indigenous patients may hesitate to enter medical spaces at all; a 2015 Wellesley Institute report found that racism in the health-care system “is so pervasive that people strategize around anticipated racism before visiting the emergency department or, in some cases, avoid care altogether.”
One way of addressing the issue of ingrained racism in health care is to increase the diversity of the medical profession itself, especially for Black and Indigenous doctors. Medical schools have been slow to prioritize diversity, but in 2019 Canada’s 17 medical schools implemented a plan to boost recruitment of Indigenous students in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action.
Black Canadians also report experiencing racism in the health-care system, and have historically not seen themselves reflected among the doctors who provide them with care. But there are signs of change: the University of Toronto reported that the highest number of Black students ever were admitted to the school’s Faculty of Medicine MD program for the school’s upcoming Fall 2020 semester.
“It’s important to have more Black doctors because we’ve not been at the table in the same numbers. We’re not represented in health care or leadership in the same proportions as we’re represented in society, largely due to the complex social impacts of systemic anti-Black racism,” said Onye Nnorom, a family doctor and the Black Health Theme lead for the U of T Faculty of Medicine, in a recent interview. But more progress needs to be made: the number of Black doctors in Ontario would need to double to become proportionate to the province’s Black population, Nnorom said.
According to the Black Physicians of Canada, diversity in the medical profession also has the effect of better serving Black populations since “Black patients are more likely to feel comfortable with Black doctors and more likely to adhere to certain preventive measures delivered by Black doctors.” Black doctors are also more likely to work in Black communities, where rates of certain chronic diseases tend to be higher and barriers to care are greater.
At the same time, Black and Indigenous doctors can face obstacles that other doctors do not, including bias and prejudice in the workplace, lack of mentorship opportunities, and barriers to advancement — all of which can make their path to practising medicine more difficult.
Addressing the issue of racism within the health-care system will require a multi-pronged and comprehensive approach. Other solutions could include improving race-based data collection, allowing doctors with foreign medical training to gain licensing in Canada, and educating those working in medical fields about the complex history of colonization in Canada. For a truly equitable future even beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada will need to embrace these changes and commit to anti-racism practices in health care at every level.
The Institute for Canadian Citizenship and Embassy of Canada in Mexico partnered on the third of a three-part Mexico-Canada Dialogue series, discussing how both Mexico and Canada share a rich and challenging history shaped by colonization. We discussed how the legacy of colonialism is both broad-ranging and deeply entrenched: from classism and economic inequality to racism and tokenism.
It’s long been clear that these systems must be uprooted. The project is a large one, but can start with each of us as individuals, and how we relate to the people around us.
Featuring
Introductions: Ambassador Graeme C. Clark
Remarks by: The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson
Moderator: Juana Inés Dehesa
Speakers: Kamal Al-Solaylee (Canada), El Jones (Canada), Judith Bautista Pérez (Mexico)
Key Takeaways
Colonialism, and more specifically the exploitation of land and people, has created inequalities on both a global and national scale. Many accept that this is clearly apparent in the “colonial era” of North America, in the overt subjugation of Indigenous peoples of North America, the extraction of resources, and the slave trade, but this exploitation did not end in the 19th, or 20th centuries. It continues to be prevalent in our daily lives today.
Over the last 100 years, building upon inequalities of the past, exploitation of land and people continues to be apparent in differential political status, resource extraction, and labour dynamics. Indigenous Peoples, Black folks, and immigrants have all faced barriers to political participation. This includes the explicit denial of the right to vote, among a variety of means to prevent control over land and resources. Time and again, in Canada and Mexico, we see Indigenous peoples fighting to prevent resource extraction occuring on their lands, or impacting their lands, without their consent. They also all continue to be disproportionately represented in, and unfairly compensated, for menial, front-line work (as explored in Kamal Al-Solaylee’s book Brown), and have borne the risk, the pain, and the death that comes from this work in the era of COVID-19.
Racial hierarchies are a construction, and this construction is an essential component of exploitation. The fluidity of racial hierarchies demonstrates their constructed nature. This fluidity is apparent both in how a single individual’s race and associated hierarchical position is interpreted differently in different locales, and in how entire classes of people, such as the Irish in 19th century America, have seen their racial and hierarchical position shift over time. The construction of this hierarchy, the dehumanization, and de-valuation of certain groups of people, which continues to be drilled into us from a young age, has always been an essential component to exploitation, implicitly justifying unfair and unequal outcomes including slavery, indentured labour, political exclusion, land appropriation, and the exportation of the most severe environmental consequences of rampant capitalism: pollution and global warming.
In both Canada and Mexico, too many subscribe to myths that racism and racially based exploitation are things of the past, thus causing ignorance of, and inaction on these issues. In Canada, many look at our official multiculturalism policy, compare us to the United States, and conclude that racism is not a big issue here. In Mexico, there is the notion that because of the prevalence of the Mestizo population (people of mixed ancestry; usually a mix of European and Indigenous), that racism is non-existent. In both countries, a supposed capitalist meritocracy (ignoring historical oppression), and tokenistic political appointments of Black, brown, and Indigenous peoples also serve to assuage, while failing to realize racial justice in a genuine sense.
What we seek is justice. To realize this, we have to confront how colonialism and racism continue to infect our modern societies, and then take action to abolish them. We must recognize the inherent dignity and value of all people, and the ways in which internalized colonialism has allowed us to accept, and/or benefit from, inequality and exploitation for too long. We must obliterate racial hierarchies from our own minds, before we can create lasting justice in our politics, our policing, and our economies.
With the long, tumultuous first summer of the pandemic coming to an end, back-to-school season will soon begin across the country. So far, the federal government’s guidelines for safe reopening have been relatively broad, and the measures being taken by schools have varied drastically between provinces. Saskatchewan, for example, will not require masks in schools, while high-risk areas of Ontario will require masks for students in grades 4 to 12 and only allow secondary students to attend classes for half the week.
The differences between provinces make sense given the varying severity of outbreaks across the country, but Canada’s strategy overall has failed to address the threat that the virus presents. By not seeming to take into account the existing risks faced by children and the communities they live in, the plan could potentially jeopardize public health and exacerbate existing inequalities.
Contrary to some of the misinformation that has appeared online, children and young people are not immune to COVID-19. In Canada, more than 10,000 people aged 19 and under have been diagnosed with the disease, and over 145 have been hospitalized. So far, one young person (their exact age has not been made public) has died.
As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, systemic racism has had a significant effect on who is impacted by COVID-19 — namely BIPOC and other racialized communities. Now we also know that the same disparities exist among children. A study of 1,000 participants in Washington, DC, found that the rates of infection of Black and Hispanic children were several times higher than those of white children — 30 per cent for Black children, 46.4 per cent for Hispanic children, and only 7.3 per cent for white children.
Though the number of severe cases seen in Canadian children has been relatively low, it’s also important to remember that those we’ve seen so far have been made manageable by lockdown measures and early school closures. How those numbers may change once schools reopen is unclear, but early data from the United States and other countries has not been encouraging.
In the U.S. (where some districts began classes in August) there have already been a number of COVID-19 cases in schools, forcing thousands of students and staff to quarantine after potentially being exposed to the virus. The true number of cases is still unknown, mainly because some states are not actually tracking aggregate cases of COVID-19 in their schools, and no national tally of school outbreaks currently exists.
Not only are children able to catch the virus, they could also spread it to their families at home and potentially create clusters of transmission. A study based in South Korea found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 were just as likely to transmit the virus as adults. That means that even if the risk of severe illness is low among young people, they could still put the adults in their lives at risk of contracting a severe case of COVID-19.
Teachers and other underpaid and underprotected education workers are also made vulnerable by schools reopening — and some are speaking out about their fear and frustration with the government’s current lack of planning. As one Quebec teacher told CTV: “A lot of us are afraid to admit how scared we really are…We’re supposed to put on a brave face and make them [students] feel safe. But in kind of our own moments, when we’re talking amongst ourselves, the truth is, yeah, it’s scary getting out there.”
At the same time, moving entirely to remote learning could have significant negative effects on marginalized students who already experience education inequality. Lower-income families may not be able to afford the technology or internet access necessary to facilitate remote learning, and it could be more difficult for some families to provide a quiet, distraction-free environment due to a lack of space at home. If children are made to attend school online, parents who cannot afford childcare are forced to juggle those responsibilities while also trying to work.
In some places — mostly wealthy, white enclaves in the U.S. — “learning pods,” which involve families bringing their kids together in small groups for private in-person instruction, have cropped up. But lower-income families and BIPOC have so far been left out of the conversation.
Economic inequality is already a significant factor when it comes to education inequality in this country. A 2018 UNICEF report found that, in Canada, “parental affluence accounts for about half the disparities in educational achievement in high school.” Evidence shows that children from lower-income families are at a persistent disadvantage when they enter school, whereas children from higher-income families have access to more resources which directly translates into higher educational attainment.
“Income inequality creates a ‘private investment gap’ in childhood, with wealthier and better-educated parents better able to provide resources and environments that support children’s development through the school years,” the report states. “For instance, more food security, safer homes and neighbourhoods, support for children with disabilities and richer opportunities to play and learn in and outside school.” During COVID-19, it’s clear how these inequalities could become even worse, forcing lower-income children and those from marginalized communities to fall increasingly further behind their wealthier peers.
There’s no easy solution to this problem, with governments trying to balance the health and safety risks of in-school instruction with the education inequalities involved with moving to remote learning. But without addressing fundamental inequalities related to income, race, and immigration status, the disparities in COVID-19 infections will continue and the long-term effects on the health and education of young people could be significant.
Meet Canoo member Amjad Baig. Amjad moved to Canada because he believes it is a country where “there is unlimited opportunity and potential where your dreams can become reality.”
“Canada is a truly multicultural country with a rich ethnic diversity,” he says, “You feel welcomed and belonging here. The gorgeous scenery views of the untouched and natural environment are breathtaking and next to none I have seen so far.”
Amjad lives in Toronto, but his favourite place in Canada is on the West Coast. “Even though I stay in Toronto, two hours north of Vancouver by road lies our favorite place – Whistler,” he says, “The natural beauty, unique mountain lifestyle and stunning scenery is the best escape like nowhere else. Finding yourself in the mountains, breathing in the wild air you just get swept up by the unique energy. There are always some adventures that can inspire and challenge you anytime of the year in Whistler.”
During his time as a Canoo member in 2019, Amjad visited Casa Loma with his family, one of his favourite cultural venues in Toronto. “We went to Casa Loma on the 25th of August, 2019. It was our family day out,” he says, “We saw some of the most amazing things like the Great Hall, The Library, The Estate Gardens, The Round Room, Sir Henry Pellatt’s Suite, Lady Pellatt’s Suite, The Windsor Room, The Pellatt Board Room, Queen’s Own Rifle Museum, the stables and finally the Automotive Museum. The experience was as if you traveled back in time, at times we would stand and just imagine what life would have been during those times, such an amazing history. Our favorite was a secret storage area beside the fireplace.”
Amjad believes that cultural venues like Casa Loma can help build more inclusive societies: “Coming from various cultural places and background help to understand others better, learn through connections making it a better resilient, stronger and socially inclusive community.”
“Canoo is so very thoughtful and such a beautiful gesture to give every new citizen to experience and learn a little more about the land, food, culture, nature and connect with people,” says Amjad, “ Canoo celebrates the experience of being truly Canadian, not just to celebrate a new citizen’s journey from landing to becoming a citizen but recognizing & rewarding the hustle and the contribution during that period. Visiting the parks and Casa Loma was simply beautiful. Thank you Canoo for the memorable experience!”
Canoo gives new Canadian families access to 1400+ arts, culture spaces and parks across Canada. While Canoo is free to use, it’s not free to operate. As a charity, we rely on donations to help keep Canoo available and free for new Canadian citizens. With your generous support, we can help thousands of new Canadians and their family belong. Give the gift of Canoo! Become a monthly donor today.
When the novel coronavirus pandemic took hold in Canada and shutdowns began — closing businesses, leaving hourly workers hanging, and forcing many of those laid off to apply for unemployment — millions of Canadians worried how they would make ends meet.
In late March, the Trudeau government released a statement announcing the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which allowed many of the Canadians affected by the pandemic to collect $2,000 per month. “No Canadian should have to choose between protecting their health, putting food on the table, paying for their medication or caring for a family member,” read the Department of Finance press release on March 25.
The move was heralded by many for providing essential financial support during a difficult time. But, some advocates have asked, what happens once the pandemic is over? Even before the pandemic, countless Canadians were forced to choose between essentials, like food or medication, due to a lack of economic resources. And after the pandemic, the number of Canadians experiencing hardships is likely to be much greater. Addressing these needs long-term will require a more comprehensive approach.
The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) — a policy where governments provide a basic economic safety net through recurring payments paid out to all citizens — has been around for a long time, and UBI programs have been attempted around the world with notably positive effects. A study from the Stanford University Basic Income Lab found that in low and middle-income countries, UBI policies led to poverty reduction and, across all of the countries studied, improvements to health and well-being were observed.
Canada has flirted with the idea of UBI twice in the past: first during a study based in Manitoba in the 1970s, and another in Ontario between 2017 and 2018. Unfortunately, both were stopped before a proper wide-scale analysis could be completed.
However, a 2011 review of the Manitoba study found a number of positive outcomes for the more than 2,000 households who received support, including a decline in hospitalizations, reduced doctor visits, as well as improvements to mental health. Results in Ontario — though limited due to the study’s premature cancellation — were also positive, with respondents improving their diets, smoking and drinking less, and reporting lower levels of anxiety.
One of the main arguments in opposition to UBI as a policy is that many believe it would discourage people from working, since they could simply stay home and collect benefits instead. However, the evidence found in Canada doesn’t seem to support that concern — in both the Manitoba and the Ontario studies, participants continued working despite receiving benefits.
Predictably, programs like this can be expensive, but the Ontario study suggests the savings to health-care services could at least partially offset the costs of the program itself. And overall, economists that have modeled the effect of UBI show that the net economic effect would be beneficial. A U.S. study conducted by the Roosevelt Institute found that a UBI that paid each American $1,000 per month would grow the economy by about 12 to 13 per cent.
UBI Works, a Canadian organization comprised of supporters from the business community, researchers, and economists, has made the business case for why a basic income plan should be introduced in Canada. On their website, they state that “UBI is an economic need that puts markets in service to humanity, installing the plumbing into capitalism that adds resilience and robustness to the economy, ensuring everyone can fully participate to their potential.” Though many tend to focus on the economic costs of UBI, there are also considerable economic benefits as well.
UBI addresses the material conditions of citizens directly by giving them the financial resources to meet their needs. In this way, it can help improve the persistent inequalities in health, education, and economic security that disproportionately affect BIPOC citizens. A basic income is also a way to address the sizable wealth gap between white and BIPOC citizens: data from 2016 found that the average white household in America had ten times the wealth of the average Black household, and around eight times the wealth of a Latinx household. Though UBI wouldn’t necessarily fix this wealth gap, it would be a great place to start.
The way that CERB was implemented widely and quickly in the weeks following the start of the pandemic shows that, if given the incentive, the government could implement a universal basic income program across the country. And in the same way that CERB has helped millions of Canadians stay afloat (and, in some cases, earn more than they were earning in their previous positions), the same benefits could be seen if UBI was implemented permanently.
Most of all, UBI transforms the relationship between individuals and their labour and helps us envision a different way of living that is not centered on gruelling work, exploitation by employers, and various kinds of discrimination. With so many jobs being lost due to automation in recent years; the gap between rich and poor growing ever-wider; and the economic impact of COVID-19, maybe it’s time to consider some of the ways that having a basic financial safety net could have a positive effect on the lives of Canadians.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an environment where misinformation and conspiracy theories can seep into government decision-making and has shown how social media can spread incorrect information that is a danger to public health. The United States has been the prime example of this, with COVID-19 cases growing at a staggering rate while President Donald Trump continues to share information that contradicts the advice of scientists and experts. By comparison, Canada’s response has been more or less in line with public health recommendations and cases in Canada have been much lower — about 120,000 cases total across the country compared to more than five million in the US.
However, Canada’s success can also present a challenge when it comes to convincing some people about the severity and seriousness of the virus. With the worst-case outcomes avoided so far and the curve successfully flattened, the measures that Canadians have been asked to follow can seem like an overreaction. This has created what some have called a “paradox of prevention,” where the more successfully we prevent the spread of the virus, the more we might begin to believe it’s not really a threat.
Convincing others of the effectiveness of prevention, even when the benefits have proven themselves, can be difficult. A 2013 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that among the obstacles to implementing prevention strategies is the fact that “the success of prevention is invisible, lacks drama, often requires persistent behavior change, and may be long delayed.” Prevention requires group effort, individual accountability, and long-term thinking, with the rewards being far off and hard to measure.
In the case of Canada, however, our neighbours to the south can act as a direct point of comparison, making the benefits of prevention and following public health advice demonstrably clear. But even so, conspiracy groups in Canada have continued to gain followers while spreading inaccurate information, including instances of racism and scapegoating of people based on their ethnic origin, as well as misleading claims about the spread, severity, and dangers of COVID-19.
One group, calling themselves “Hugs Over Masks,” circulated pamphlets in downtown Toronto and on social media spreading the false claim that mask-wearing was dangerous to the health of wearers. Anti-mask demonstrations have appeared in Montreal, Winnipeg, and other cities across Canada. Now, as vaccine production moves forward, skepticism and misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines has also begun to grow.
The reasons behind the popularity of conspiracy theories is complex, but one important element is an acute mistrust of politicians and government institutions, sometimes veering into paranoia. And with the pandemic disrupting so much about our day to day lives, necessitating somewhat drastic government policies like physical distancing and lockdown measures, mistrust is further amplified.
University of Guelph professor Maya Goldenberg told the CBC that conspiracy theories around both mask-wearing and vaccines are linked to feelings of public confidence. “When you don’t trust the sort of basic infrastructure that’s supposed to support public well being, you’re going to come up with all kinds of tactics to try to resist it,” said Goldenberg.
To help counteract conspiracy beliefs, doctors and other experts need to be patient and respectful when addressing misinformed people. “If there’s one way to get people defensive, it is to disparage them and not to take them seriously,” said Goldenberg. Creating and building trust is a long and difficult process but individual interactions can have an impact.
If friends or loved ones begin to show interest in conspiracy theories, it’s also helpful to remember that their response could be related to fear and unease; anxiety in response to existential threats is commonly associated with conspiracy beliefs. Talking to loved ones in a calm way, rooted in facts, and asking about the source of their information can also be helpful.
Misinformation has become a huge obstacle to combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s important that we continue to have difficult conversations about the accuracy and reliability of the news we consume. Recently, Theresa Tam, the country’s chief public health officer, stated that physical distancing and mask-wearing measures could continue for the next two to three years. To move forward, knowing how to communicate accurate information will be essential for our long-term success.
Misinformation about the origin, spread, and treatment of the novel coronavirus has proliferated online ever since the first days of the pandemic, spreading widely on social media. An April survey of more than 2,000 people found that one in five Canadians believed that the Chinese government engineered the novel coronavirus in a lab, and nearly one in ten believed that the pandemic is a way for Bill Gates to implant people with microchips. Of course, neither of these claims has any basis in fact, but their popularity has nonetheless exploded online, with social media posts in support of these ideas racking up countless likes and shares.
In the beginning of the pandemic, before we had an abundance of reliable, well-communicated research on the virus, the spread of misinformation online could be considered somewhat understandable. But as the months have passed and data and public health recommendations have become more clear, misinformation has nonetheless continued to thrive. This begs the question: Why are conspiracy theories still so popular?
Conducted by researchers with the Vox Pop Labs COVID-19 Monitor, the April survey found that certain characteristics seemed to be linked to a belief in conspiracy theories, including, significantly, where respondents got their news. Canadians who got their COVID-19 news from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit were more likely to believe in conspiracies than those who had never visited these sites for news content. Unlike reputable news publications, the information being shared on social media is not necessarily reliable or fact-checked, leading to confusion for readers and a higher risk of believing misinformation.
A study published in Psychological Science highlighted the ways that social media can shape our beliefs by creating an online environment where the number of likes and shares a post has can distract us from considering the accuracy of a particular source. When a post receives attention online, readers might be more inclined to assume that the post is true, despite it containing inaccurate information.
How our social media feeds are set up could also be working against us. The way that social media feeds tend to mix information that requires us to think critically about accuracy (like COVID-19-related theories) with content that does not require much critical thinking (like vacation photos shared by friends) may lead users to “habituate to a lower level of accuracy consideration” while online, the study says.
Tied to the issue of social media is the way that politicians like Donald Trump have been able to use digital platforms to pursue dangerous political goals. Trump has used Twitter to spread racist ideas surrounding the virus, referring to it as the “Chinese virus” even as Asian Americans were targeted by discrimination — especially in the early days of the pandemic. When Black Lives Matter protests sprang up across the country, the president used his platform to target and demonize protestors. And, more recently, Trump tweeted out a video that supported the disproven idea that hydroxychloroquine could be used to cure COVID-19.
These tweets have a direct effect on the president’s supporters. A study from the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review found that Trump supporters were taking the president’s lead when it came to facts surrounding the virus in a kind of “top-down” model of information spread. “As Trump initially trivialized COVID-19, individuals who looked to him for guidance followed suit to a greater extent than those who did not,” the study stated.
The politicization of public health recommendations, like mask-wearing, has served to radically increase misinformation in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, in Canada. An apparent disagreement between two competing authorities — what the president and his allies have claimed and what public health experts across the world have claimed — makes distinguishing between accurate and inaccurate information all the more difficult. The US — currently home to more cases of coronavirus than any other country in the world — has become an example of what happens when conspiracy theories are left unchecked and allowed to infect policy decisions on a national level.
Still, not all hope is lost. There are numerous organizations that are working to combat COVID-19 misinformation online through fact-checking initiatives, including Snopes, Politifact, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Walrus. And experts say that there are strategies social media companies can use to help reduce the spread of misinformation online, such as “nudging” users to consider the accuracy of the sources they’re reading before sharing.
Some social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, have been experimenting with adding accuracy warnings on certain posts related to the pandemic. However, critics argue much of their efforts have been inadequate as misinformation remains on the platforms, sometimes even after being debunked by fact-checkers.
The short-term outlook for mitigating misinformation online unfortunately does not look promising. With the U.S. president himself being flagged by Twitter for sharing inaccurate information to his over 84 million followers, the real solutions to combating misinformation will need to be much larger and wide-ranging than what we’ve seen so far. With the number of cases of COVID-19 continuing to increase worldwide, figuring out how to address this problem is quite literally a matter of life and death.
