Washington (AFP)

US President Donald Trump was quite possibly the single largest contributor to disinformation about Covid-19 during the pandemic, according to a study released Thursday from Cornell University.

Some 38 million articles, published in English in traditional media between January 1 and May 26, 2020, were analyzed by a team from the Cornell Alliance for Science.

This database included articles published in particular for the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, as well as for certain other countries in Africa and Asia. .

More than 522,400 articles conveying false information relating to the coronavirus have been identified - a phenomenon called "infodemic" by the World Health Organization.

A total of eleven categories have been identified, ranging from conspiratorial theories to miracle cures.

The latter topic was by far the most popular, appearing in 295,351 articles, more than the other ten combined.

According to the study's authors, Donald Trump's comments were responsible for a significant spike in this category, especially those made during a press conference on April 24, during which he raised the possibility of injection. of disinfectant in the body to treat the disease.

Similar peaks were seen when he promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, a treatment whose effectiveness has not been proven.

"We therefore concluded that the President of the United States was certainly the biggest factor in disinformation" on Covid-19, the researchers wrote.

"If people are misguided by unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the disease, they may follow official recommendations less and thus spread the disease more," said Sarah Evanega, who led the study.

"One of the most interesting aspects (...) was to discover the impressive mass of false information directly related to the comments on a small number of individuals", noted its co-author Jordan Adams.

After the miracle cures, the most propagated "infox" concerned, in order: the idea of ​​a virus created to establish a new world order, to help politically the American Democratic Party, of a biological weapon diffused by a Chinese laboratory, a disease linked to American billionaire Bill Gates, 5G, anti-Semitic theories, or a virus created to regulate the population.

At the end of the list: attacks targeting the eminent American scientist Anthony Fauci, references to the "Plandemic" video notably relaying anti-vaccine theories, and finally to the responsibility for the consumption of bat soup in the pandemic.

The researchers also calculated that the shares of these articles on social networks caused more than 36 million interactions, three-quarters on Facebook.

The study was partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

© 2020 AFP