Real doctor struggles with ‘Doctor Google’

A doctor was forced to intentionally seek profit just because he concluded that Covid-19 was the cause of a patient’s death.

Eight months into the pandemic, frontline doctors are not only fighting the virus, but also fighting another persistent enemy: misinformation.

Before Covid-19 swept through, medical professionals were used to dealing with cases of patients self-treating with untested remedies on the Internet.

In the first three months of the year, at least 800 people died, thousands of others were hospitalized due to drinking high concentrations of alcohol to `kill the virus`.

Medical staff at Elmhurst Hospital Center, New York, July 2020.

Doctors’ frustrations flooded Facebook groups and online forums.

Last month, Americans circulated a video of a group of self-proclaimed `Frontline Doctors`.

Ryan Stanton, a doctor in Kentucky, said many patients with Covid-19 symptoms have delayed seeing a doctor because they think this is `not a big deal.`

Thomas Knowles, a medical worker in the UK, even encountered a patient who refused to be hospitalized due to believing online rumors that doctors would take people’s blood for research and then leave them to die.

`Personally, I have never encountered a group so stubborn and blind that they cling to such erroneous prejudices,` Mr. Knowles said.

In New York, the situation is more positive, but still worrying.

Congolese immigrants believe that Covid-19 is a method for the US government to deport them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is developing methods to measure the harm of rumors related to nCoV online.

Doctors say patients often object to their treatment, tending to believe online posts more than medical professionals.

Medical staff at Orlando city testing site, June 2020.

`This is no longer a phenomenon that doctors observe. It has become a statistically significant pattern that we can draw on in a large survey,` said Daniel Allington, a senior lecturer at the High School of Medicine.

Some doctors have had to argue with patients demanding to be prescribed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

`The number of cases is increasing again and I see a lot of things that need to be addressed on social networks, information like: the pandemic is not a big problem, the community does not need to take these preventive steps,` David

Online platforms have introduced policies to limit misinformation about nCoV.