COVID slips: Are they doing any good or being a part of an infodemic?

Since the health infrastructure is not able to support the increasing population suffering from COVID, there are some hand-written and some created COVID slips being circulated over social media. These slips consist of a list of medicines to be taken up by COVID positive patients. To add the element of authenticity, the information is conflated with a reliable source like associating it with some doctor's prescription, hospital's guidelines or any other government authority, some of them being nibbed as doctor-forwards. . To people, when the message seems to be coming from a dignitary such as a doctor or an official with a great salutation, the information seems plausible. And not just the capacity of these posts, but also the choice of words like, “official’ in the forwarded content has a similar capacity. This psychological connection with a position hinders any person to verify the fact behind the message. 

If not through officials, there are many fake messages like that of miraculous cures for COVID. Many literate, as well as uneducated people, fall in for them since the fear is grave. For example, many people thronged to the village Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, India where a free herbal concoction was being administered as the miraculous cure for COVID. The spread of this so-called 'miracle cure' was also on a large scale through social media. 

There is no regulation over such kind of information being in circulation. Though, the herbal preparation has been sent for checking, nearly ten thousand people arrive there daily to take the medicine. And many of them claim that they got relieved with the herbal medicine. Well, the magic behind it is yet to come up, for now, it can only be said that such medicines if are truly working wonders should be manufactured or administered under the proper guidelines and advisories by the medical boards. 

Not all patients suffering from COVID can take a similar set of medicines. Without realizing this, people are taking whatever medicines the so-called social media doctors are prescribing. No dose adjustments, no monitoring, no assessment of any co-existing diseases, no insight into interacting medicines being taken for any other underlying disease, nothing...

Favipiravir or Remdesivir, antiviral drugs is not to be administered to all patients, but to the ones who doctor seems fit in concern of the high viral load and less response to other antibacterial drugs. But, as a part of the social media COVID slips, patients spend money to avail these medicines at much higher than the actual price. Misery adds on when the disease gets no better even after following these prescription slips.

Even steroidal drugs such as Methyl Prednisolone are being taken which are not recommended in early and mild cases. They are immunosuppressants and can also lead to decreased immunity to the level making the patients susceptible to other opportunistic secondary infections. 

This is the major cause behind the cases of Muromycosis or the black fungus on the rise today.

The status of medical infrastructure and lack of facilities of hospitals has now become transparent, people in India are avoiding going to hospitals and are self-medicating even for mild symptoms according to these COVID slips. Messages for COVID patients do not lessen the pain, rather they are advisories of their own kind. You should take this, you should take that, do this, don't do that and more and more. This later turn into complications further worsening their health conditions. 

This treatment domain constructed through a virtual mirror is leading to devastating conditions. Is this not a kind of misinformation being disseminated through digital platforms? This could make us think about whether the hyper-connectedness of social media usage in the present circumstances worsening the existing conditions. 

Not just medicines, many things like miraculous cures are also being shared which are also not good altogether. For instance, immunity booster Kadha is on high wheels to improve immunity and many pharmaceutical companies and FMCG companies have come up with their versions of it. Besides, there are recipe messages and videos of the same. While, it has very beneficial effects, but in some patients, it has been known to exaggerate certain allergies, urticaria, etc.

We, human beings are social beings and interdependence is our backbone. It is our social nature that distinguishes us from other living beings. Networking over telecommunication has been extensively used to connect people socially. And then these social connections are capitalized upon after making it an integral part of our lives. This platform has been extensively and judiciously used to reach masses to promulgate information many a time, but today, misinformation has escalated through this channel at further scalable heights which is further proliferating swiftly. There is blind sharing and re-sharing of the information without a speck of concern for the serious impact it can have and also with no concern for the authenticity of the information. 

There are other pieces of misinformation like that of preventive medicines. But, they only tend to boost the flair of fake confidence that decreases people's concern for preventive measures. Hydroxychloroquine is one of the antimalarial medicine which was claimed to benefit in the treatment of COVID-19. And people started taking it as preventive medicine. Yes, as per the government circulation, it was required for the medical staff and people in the direct exposure to the virus shall take it but with a prescription. But, people started taking it without prescription, without knowing the fact that medicine can be risky for cardiac patients. The claim was so big that at the global level, the demand for medicine increased and also increased with it was the hoarding. A doctor in Assam, India took up the medicine for prevention without any real exposure to the virus when there was not even a single COVID positive case in the state, died of heart attack 

If you or your near ones are suffering from COVID, first you mustn't panic. It is mostly the result of anxiety that people end up with solutions like self-medication. Get tested and in the meantime, contact the nearest medical facility for medical advice. Give the medical professionals a complete medical history so that you can be prescribed the medicines that suit best your medical conditions. Take medicines as advised and not the ones you tend to come across as a social media message. 

Self-medication can be seriously harmful. In these hard times when the medical system is trying to meet ends for COVID patients, adding on as a complication is only going to put the burden and that too as a result of negligence. This makes it difficult for the deserving population to get immediate medical attention only because we chose to abide by the social media COVID slip. It's important to be aware and not fall in for misleading pieces of information. These pieces of information may or may not carry any resemblance to the truth, but we can at least break the circle by choosing not to be a participant of it either in the discourse of such information or join the follower league. Misleading information can be deadlier than the disease itself. 

Though staying connected socially through social media and that too with the freedom to speech is important and sometimes the only hope for people left unheard otherwise, yet negligence to the ethical concerns can create alarming situations beyond control. 

 

The social media platform behaves democratically and does not distinguish a post as fact or hoax. Without any concern for the veracity of the information, it keeps in circulation leading to unmanageable consequences. 

Getting socially connected is a human need, but is equally important to understand how this connection can bring harmony or harm. 

The kind of information that is circulated has a deep impact on human psychology. Fear from the virus itself is not so imperative as is that from flawed information. It is a request to one and all to not be a part of sharing any misleading information that can put someone else's life to threat. Stay awake, Stay Aware and Share only what's good and can do good. There is no miraculous cure that works well for all alike. No medicine however safe shall be taken without a prescription from a registered medical practitioner.

The major question is, What makes people vulnerable to such preventive measures, treatments and act upon. It is but the lack of trust, an act of panic, lack of clear directive measures and even the lack of professional medical support. And whether there be boundaries for circulating these pieces of information remains debatable.