It was based on a second-hand account from an unnamed physician at an unnamed Seattle-area hospital. When I contacted the author of the thread, he was not forthcoming with any details about where this was happening or who the source was.
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The story followed a common disinformation playbook, mixing elements of truth with falsehood, tracking plausible narratives. We've seen a number such threads claiming dire conditions that turned out to be inaccurate. I asked for confirmation or refutation:pic.twitter.com/4x3m0ffIP3
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Several Seattle-area MDs and other health professionals disputed the account. No one confirmed. I can see why they didn't want to go too public about it—since questioning the story I've been slammed with all sorts of vitriol and libel. As I expected to be.
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Subsequently the original author tried to walk back the post.pic.twitter.com/OUqZNh0hp5
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And now he has deleted the entire thread. (Which, on social media, is the right thing to do, otherwise it continues to spread. Thank you, OP)pic.twitter.com/aTJhOWa2XZ
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This is not the first time we've seen something like this. A similar thread a couple of days ago https://twitter.com/Chenbariatrics1/status/1238322250392039424 … was also walked back by its physician-authorhttps://twitter.com/Chenbariatrics1/status/1238519203298082816 …
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Lots of lessons here. May be the most important is that if the scariest, most dramatic version of events is coming from unnamed second-hand sources, and named verifiable sources are giving more tempered reports—be skeptical of the alarmist account.
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I'm exhausted. This sort of thing takes a huge mental and emotional toll—because it matters, and because you get hit with a torrent of hatred for your efforts. Please help me fight
#disinformation on#COVID19#coronavirus. The virus is more than formidable enough on its own.Show this thread
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Thanks for calling it out!
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Thanks for spotting that
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