Dr. Seema Yasmin
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Some social media users are falsely comparing hantavirus to COVID-19 and promoting unproven treatments, fueling confusion and fear.
Dr. Seema Yasmin is a physician and epidemiologist at Stanford University.
She says uncertainty often creates the perfect conditions for misinformation.
In a knowledge vacuum, people fill that space with any information that they can get their hands on, whether it's accurate or inaccurate.
Yasmin says people should rely on trusted public health sources.
They say transmission is associated with prolonged close contact and the risk to the general public is considered very low.
In a knowledge vacuum, people fill that space with any information that they can get their hands on, whether it's accurate or inaccurate.
The outbreak has flooded social media sites with posts falsely comparing hantavirus to COVID-19 and spreading misleading claims about transmission.
Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former CDC disease specialist, says the broader concern is the nation's weakened public health infrastructure.
withdrawal from the World Health Organization is another major concern.
President Trump told reporters last week that the situation is, quote, under very good control.
We have seen the dismantling and defunding of public health, and we are not ready for the next emerging pathogen, the next flu.
So people's concerns make sense.
The law of unintended consequences has taken hold.
The war has basically produced a more radical and increasingly confident leadership in Iran that believes it can outlast U.S.
political will while sustaining domestic repression to suppress internal resistance.
I'm not going to gaslight anyone into thinking that they are foolish for being scared because of the world we're living in, and especially the fact that the U.S.