Los Angeles emergency room nurse Sandra Younan spent the last year juggling long hours watching how many patients struggled with the coronavirus and some died.
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Then there were the patients who claimed the virus was fake or coughed on their face and ignored the mask rules. A man stormed out of the hospital after a positive COVID-19 test and refused to believe it was correct.
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“You have patients who literally die and then you have patients who deny the disease,” she said. “You try to educate and you try to educate, but then you just bump into a wall.”
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False claims about viruses, masks and vaccines have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago. Journalists, public health officials, and technology companies have tried to fight back the untruths, but much of the job of correcting misinformation rests with the world’s front line medical professionals.
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In Germany, a video clip showing a nurse using an empty syringe while practicing vaccinations became widespread as alleged evidence that COVID-19 is fake. Doctors in Afghanistan reported on patients told that COVID-19 was developed by the US and China to help reduce the world’s population. In Bolivia, medical workers had to attend to five people who had ingested a toxic bleach that was falsely touted as a COVID-19 cure.
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Younan, 27, says her friends used to call her “the coolest person ever,” but now she’s all about destroying fear.
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“My life is a nurse so I don’t care if you’re really sick, you’re puking me whatever,” Younan said. “But if you know what you’re doing it’s wrong and I keep asking you to wear your mask to protect me and you still don’t. It’s like you have no consideration for anyone but you. And that’s why this virus is spreading. You just lose hope. “
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Emily Scott, 36, who works at a Seattle hospital, has worked on medical missions around the world and helped care for the first U.S. COVID-19 patient last year. She was selected for her experience in Sierra Leone in 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
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While many Americans have feared Ebola – a disease that is nowhere near as contagious as the coronavirus and hardly a threat in the United States – they are nowhere near enough fearful of COVID-19, she said.
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Scott blames several factors: Ebola’s terrifying symptoms, racism against Africans, and the politicization of COVID-19 by American elected officials.
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“I felt so much safer in Sierra Leone during Ebola than when this outbreak began in the US,” said Scott, because many people were disregarding social distancing and masking guidelines. “Things that are facts and science have become politicized.”
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Emergency room nurse L’Erin Ogle heard a litany of false claims about the virus while working at a hospital in suburban Kansas City, Kansas. These include: The virus is no worse than the flu. It is caused by 5G radio towers. Masks do not help and can be painful. Or worst of all, the virus is not real and doctors and nurses are involved in a major global conspiracy to hide the truth.
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“It just feels so defeated and it makes you ask, why am I doing this?” said Ogle, 40.
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According to Professor Maria Brann, a health communications expert at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, nurses are often the health care providers with the most patient exposure, and patients often see nurses as more approachable. This means that nurses are more likely to come across patients spreading misinformation, which gives them a special opportunity to intervene.
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“Nurses have always been patient lawyers, but this pandemic has thrown so much more on them,” Brann said. “It can definitely take a toll. They didn’t necessarily sign up for that. “
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In some cases, nurses and other health care workers themselves spread misinformation. And many nurses say they encounter falsehoods in their own families about the coronavirus vaccine.
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Getting the vaccine was a breeze for Brenda Olmos, 31, an Austin, Texas nurse who focuses on a geriatric and Hispanic patient population. But first she had to argue about her parents, who had heard unsubstantiated claims that the shot would cause infertility and Bell’s palsy on Spanish-language television shows.
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Olmos eventually convinced her parents to get the vaccine too, but she is concerned about the vaccine hesitation in her community.
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When she recently met an elderly patient with cancerous tumors, Olmos knew it had taken years for the growth to develop. But the man’s adult children, who recently got him the vaccine, insisted the two were linked.
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“It just seemed too random to them,” said Olmos. “I just wanted you not to be at fault.”
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Olmos said the real problem with misinformation isn’t just bad actors telling lies – it’s people who believe false claims because they are not as comfortable navigating often complex medical reports.
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“Low health literacy is the real pandemic,” she said. “As a healthcare provider, we have a duty to provide the information in a tasty and easy-to-understand way so that people don’t consume misinformation because they can’t digest the real data.”
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When Texas Governor Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mask mandate this month against the guidance of many scholars, nurse practitioner Guillermo Carnegie described the decision as a “spit in the face.”
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“I was disgusted,” said Carnegie, 34, of Temple, Texas. “This governor and various people act like this:” Oh, we are proud of our people at the front, we support them. “But then they do that and it puts a huge strain on the medical field.”
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Brian Southwell, who started a program at Duke University School of Medicine to train healthcare professionals to speak to misinformed patients, said providers should view the patient who trusts them as an opportunity.
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“This patient trusts you enough to discuss this information with you,” said Southwell. “And that’s a good thing, even if you disagree with it.”
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He said health workers should refuse to switch to “academic argument mode” and instead find out why patients hold certain beliefs – and whether they might be open to other ideas.
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According to Dr. Seema Yasmin, a doctor, journalist, and professor at Stanford University who studies medical misinformation, this listening is essential to building trust.
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“Put down your pen, put your notebook down, and listen,” said Yasmin.
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Associate press writer John Leicester of Le Pecq, France contributed to this report.
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More AP coverage of the first year of the pandemic: Pandemic: One Year
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