India’s Epidemic of False COVID-19 Information

 As patients and families frantically seek treatment, elected officials—and some physicians—have fuelled denialism and specious talk of miracle cures.

On April 4th, three days after the commencement of the Kumbh Mela, during which millions of Hindu pilgrims converged in the town of Haridwar to bathe in the Ganges, servers at one of India’s most popular online health services registered an uptick in searches that displayed an alarming pattern. The site, myUpchar, is a destination for residents of India’s smaller cities and towns, where doctors and health-care providers have long been in short supply. Each day, more people arrived at the site with questions about COVID-19.

As the virus’s second wave washed over India, and hospital beds and oxygen grew scarce, visitors to the site frantically hunted for medicines rumored to treat the disease: Fabiflu, remdesivir, azithromycin, ivermectin, doxycycline. Then, on April 28th, those search terms were all overshadowed—by a factor of three—by queries for an obscure homeopathic nasal spray. The popularity of the treatment baffled Manuj Garg, the site’s co-founder, who had never heard of it. Then he saw a viral WhatsApp clip of a sickly old man lying on his side, his finger in an oximeter. A caregiver seated beside him made a specious claim: the nasal spray was a miracle cure that obviated the need for oxygen. “We gave him the spray five minutes ago. That’s how fast this is,” the person promised. “Anyone, anyone whose oxygen levels are falling, go and get this spray. You won’t need to run around for an oxygen cylinder.” When Garg looked up where the online queries were coming from, he saw that they spanned the country. “This is a sign of desperation,” Garg told me. “When there’s no information, bad information finds a way.”