Experts question Facebook's approach to combat Covid-19 misinformation

(STAT, FACEBOOK)

Facebook recently launched a strategy to curb false coronavirus claims that the company says pulls from a collection of psychology studies on combating inaccurate posts. But scientists behind those papers and other experts say the good-faith effort is misguided and the social media giant appears to be interpreting the findings incorrectly. Facebook is deleting misinformation and sending those who've interacted with it a generic message about Covid-19 information — but experts said it might be better to tell people when they've come across an inaccurate post and correct it. STAT's Erin Brodwin has more here.

Here's what else is new with the pandemic:

Propelled by the encouraging results that remdesivir may help Covid-19 patients, Gilead Sciences is ramping up production of the drug. It hopes to get up to "multiple millions of treatment courses" by year's end, but experts say the realities of manufacturing pharmaceuticals limit how much a company can churn out.
Even before Wednesday's hopeful remdesivir news, physicians were reporting hearing from a few families who were hoping to get the drug for loved ones. Now, they're expecting that demand to be even higher, even though the evidence to fully recommend the drug is still out of sight.
The situation with Covid-19 in the U.S. is still fluid, and predicting how many people will die is difficult. But providing context to this ever-changing count is perhaps easier, and in a new story, STAT's Sharon Begley and Hyacinth Empinado compare the more than 60,000 deaths so far to other conditions, including the 2017-2018 flu season (61,000 deaths) and 2009's swine flu crisis (around 12,400 deaths).
In a new STAT First Opinion, psychiatrist Wendy Dean writes that the Covid-19 crisis is exacerbating some of the mental health problems plaguing medical staff, and the recent suicides of two emergency health workers are a sign that things may get worse.
On this week's episode of "The Readout LOUD," former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb joins the STAT podcast team to talk about a range of Covid-19 topics, including reopening the U.S., vaccines, and the politicization of public health. Listen here.