Here’s the place *NOT* to get it: Blogs.
Seriously. Don’t be a #COVIDIOT . Get your information from reputable sources.
Primary sources (preferred).
- CDC (Centers for Disease Control)
- WHO (World Health Organization)
- NIH (National Institutes of Health)
- University medical research sites such as
- Stanford Medical School
https://med.stanford.edu/covid19/research.html - John Hopkins School of Medicine
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ - Other reputable university medical sites (add in comments)
- Stanford Medical School
- State and county health departments
e.g. for Alameda County, California:
Secondary sources (verify against primary sources): These *must* be verified against primary sources because information on the coronavirus is changing daily, and secondary sources are not always up to date. Still, they can do a good job of translating highly technical medical language into something that laypeople can digest
Some secondary sources:
- Reputable organizations such as AARP that have medical personnel on staff. https://www.aarp.org/…/con…/info-2020/coronavirus-facts.html
- Major newspaper web sites (*VERIFY AGAINST PRIMARY SOURCES*)
- Your doctor’s office if part of a major healthcare system, e.g:
https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/covid-19/
Please *don’t* spread unvetted things from:
- Blogs like medium.com and dailykos.com
- Facebook, Nextdoor, Reddit, and other social media posts
- Editorial or opinion pieces that do not state the primary sources for their information, or which are more than a week old (please note that things are changing *rapidly*, so outdated information might no longer be applicable)
- Newspaper and television reports that cannot be validated against primary sources, especially from less reputable newspapers or television networks such as those run by cults or by far-right or far-left extremists.
- Statements of politicians, preachers, Cousin Andy down at the mailroom, etc. — these are not medical personnel, and their statements rarely reflect current medical knowledge — or any knowledge at all.
Don’t be a #COVIDIOT . Stop the spread of misinformation. Make sure what you’re spreading is real information. Check against primary sources, and if you don’t understand the primary source or can’t find a primary source — DON’T SPREAD IT.
Thank you.
— Badtux the Healthcare Penguin
I’ve never understood why people like to be idiots. It’s not just with the Bat Flu, there are all sorts of aspects to that dynamic. It’s easier to be an idiot — less mental work involved. I’m a paranoid mofo, though, and I’ve never wanted to be an idiot because I figured that some bad shit would happen to me if I wasn’t on my toes as much as I could be. Trust often equals idiocy.
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Here’s a question. I would have thought from the Big Company Name, that Yahoo News would be trustworthy. Yet I have seen some sketchy headlines with their tag.
Are they or aren’t they believable?
w3ski
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Yahoo News is a news aggregator. Basically a blog that pretends to be a news source, just like Google News except they actually include the articles rather than just links to the articles. Some of the sources they aggregate aren’t as reputable as others.
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Not criticising you, W3, but just pointing out a fallacy common to a lot of people (including me): “I would have thought…” Yeah, you’d THINK that businesses would operate in a responsible manner that would ensure their continuing survival, avoid risk to reputation, etc. But too often, they DON’T. They have the morality of a cancer cell. “Do what’s easy, steal as much as we can while we can do it, and don’t think about the future until it gets here.” It’s a shitty way to have to view the world, that everybody and everything is scamming. It’s not ALWAYS the case, but too often what we’d think is not the way things are working. What corpos do is the UNthinkable.
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