A year of living pandemically and classroom chaos in the Congo
Welcome to the Infodemic, and a special welcome to our new subscribers! Today, I am handing over to Coda’s Katia Patin and Mariam Kiparoidze for a look at the narratives, both real and fake, that have grabbed our attention and deserve yours.
One year ago this week, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic. At that point, just 120,000 people had been diagnosed with the virus worldwide. The following week, our team launched this newsletter. We knew the virus wasn’t going away any time soon, but none of us thought we’d be here, writing the Infodemic 12 months and 118 million cases later.
In our first dispatch, we told you about pseudoscientific cures, attempts by governments to censor information under the guise of fighting “fake news” and geopolitical spats over who was responsible for the outbreak. Often, it can feel like we’re still scrolling through an endless loop of the same headlines, but these stories are far from static. That’s why our team remains hard at work, tracking the ways in which the coronavirus is reshaping our lives.
Here are the latest narratives — both real and fake — that have caught our attention and deserve yours.