In the May 26 Cape Gazette, Arthur E. Sowers wrote his latest epistle, “Try not to spread the misinformation,” about coronavirus information problems.
He says that we have “two political ‘belief systems’ in the USA... a ‘scientific fact system’ and a lot of people are confusing the two.” Consequently, he says, “there is a lot of misinformation- from mistakes, omissions, ignorance, etc.- being spread around too… by non-experts.”
To fight this he touts the use of fact checkers to determine what’s true and what’s not. He supplies a list of those he follows...though he doesn’t tell us who, if anybody, fact checks the fact checkers.
Regardless, in his last paragraph he takes the usual leftist shot at President Trump, saying, “Instead of listening to a president who wants us to - for example - inject bleach into ourselves to protect us from the virus and has no training in science or medicine…etc.”
Since I thought that story has been exaggerated, I decided to follow Mr. Sowers’ advice and do a fact check about the bleach story.
Here is what Politifact (recommended on Mr. Sowers’ list) had to say: “The briefing transcript shows Trump did not say people should inject themselves with bleach or alcohol to treat the coronavirus. He was asking officials on the White House coronavirus task force whether they could be used in potential cures.”
Wow, that’s quite a different context, don’t you think?
Nevertheless, here’s a thank you to Mr. Sowers for helping me clear up his piece of “misinformation.”
Geary Foertsch
Rehoboth
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