Follow These Twitter Accounts for Accurate Information About the Coronavirus
Twitter is a great way to stay up to date on COVID-19 . I follow epidemiologists, virologists, health reporters and others – and I always learn something when I check my feed every morning. But there are also many people who may look like experts and even think they are experts, but they are not reliable sources. Luckily, there are several Twitter Lists to help you find the right people.
Too many fake expert advice
I’m not going to name names, but there have been quite a few viral (sorry) tweets about COVID-19 that were incorrect or inappropriate. In fact, not more than an hour ago, a political scientist incorrectly tweeted that the World Health Organization “officially declared” the coronavirus a pandemic. I saw the tweet when he was eight minutes ago and has already had 849 retweets and over a thousand likes. And at that very moment, I was listening to a press conference by the World Health Organization, where they explained why they are not yet ready to declare this a pandemic. The tweet has been deleted.
This coronavirus is a new virus and scientists are still studying it. If someone is an expert in health-related matters, but does not know specifically about this virus and how it spreads, they may transmit the wrong information. I have seen people who should have known better – doctors, scientists – who shared information that turned out to be false or misleading. I have seen people, from random influencers, who have tested M.D.’s myths about hand sanitizer , the significance of an epidemiological number called R0 , and nutritional strategies for preventing coronavirus (there are none).
Try these twitter lists
I am happy to report that some of my favorite and most trustworthy sources on twitter are compiled into several lists. These people include scientists, doctors and health journalists, all of whom have tried to be well-informed, up-to-date and properly skeptical about new information. I want to hug each of them every time they say, “We’ve heard the news that says X, but the meaning of that will depend on what we learn about Y and Z.”
Here are three lists I found (with some overlapping ones), and they all seem pretty good:
- Ben Konark Health Reporter List
- Timothy McDonnell’s list
- List of epidemiologist Ellie Murray
- Roxanne Khamsi Health Reporter List
I can’t vouch for every person and every tweet on these lists, but as far as I can tell, these are three good sources of information, their contributors are much better informed than your average graph of the different people you already follow. Be sure to also check out the World Health Organization’s Twitter account , where they host Q&A and post videos of their usually daily press conferences.
Updated 3/12/2020 to add Roxanne Khamsi’s roster.