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Misinformation and disinformation have been circulating about Covid-19 since the pandemic began. Rumours and falsehoods about health aren't new, but a global pandemic with a novel virus means that there is considerably more uncertainty and a lack of definite fact, and in our super-connected world, they spread far and wide.

Dr Brett Campbell, a physician in a dedicated Covid intensive care unit at Ascension St Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, says that the Delta variant has made the situation worse, and that he has witnessed increasing antagonism directed at the staff, sometimes because the patients deny that Covid exists or resent being advised on the disease by the medics. He says he has seen cases where unvaccinated patients, many of them close to death, still cannot accept that the virus is real.

"There have been people dying of Covid who have said, 'that's not what this is, you're lying'... Others are regretful, but the disease is indiscriminate - it doesn't care if you wish you had got the vaccine."

Photo: A nurse wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) attend to patients in a Covid-19 intensive care unit in California, US Credit: Getty Images

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