Given that hundreds of thousands of papers have been published in the scientific literature over the last three years about COVID, I highly recommend you stop and think about why one that you may hear about on the news, or covered in CNN, may have gotten there.
It would be a good idea to actually read the paper, before sharing, if you're willing and able.
I see a lot of probably well meaning sharing of information just because a certain paper may gotten on CNN or NBC and they're not always conveying the best information(some papers are better than others) or sometimes what the paper itself was even trying to say in the first place.
Yes, I'm referring to a certain one that's all over today, but, what I wrote will never be wrong.
@BE all very good points. And I admit to re-sharing things fairly often without reading first, just because I'm so overwhelmed and tired. And I'm not even a scientist. I can and do read the papers sometimes, but not always. I'm just a tiny novice trying to share bits and pieces of information that might be helpful to others. And sometimes I probably share things that shouldn't be shared. In my imaginary fantasy world, we would have public health and media that we could trust doing this work professionally and ethically... I know- it's a ridiculous fantasy.
@BE I haven’t seen anything on the news but I’m out of the loop today. But to your broader point, I put it to you that most people right out of high school *should* be able to read most papers, at least the précis, or excepts, but I would argue from having graded first year university student papers, that I doubt very much that there is a comprehension level able to process science papers. Education is failing. It is not doing that which it is intended to do.
Pro tip:
This applies to H5N1, too. The fire hose of bad science right now is crazy and all of the same COVID grifters are latching on trying to use "the next pandemic" to support their views on COVID.
Lots of absolutely well meaning people in my timeline right now are sharing stuff from people they've spent the last 4 years saying were unreliable.
Likewise, lots of "here's who you should listen to" followed by stuff from people saying the opposite on both the COVID and H5N1 fronts right now.
Being the "first" to put something up, or mashing the boost button just because something supports what you believe isn't as helpful as taking the time to critically think about it first.
I know saying this is pointless against the volume of bad science, but, try to think about it anyway.