 Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening wherever you are joining us from around the world. Thank you for joining us We're very excited about the session today We've talked a lot about covid. Nobody in the world has been insulated from what has been happening over the past 20 months now And as much as we talk about the virus we talk about the vaccines possibly even the need for boosters One of the big topics and an important one is how information itself is transmitted How it's verified and what to do about misinformation Wikipedia has emerged as one of the most important sources of information for millions of people Around the globe during this pandemic. So often one of the first places they search So this session today is going to bring together one of the leading wikipedia's documenting covid-19 Alongside leading representatives in the global health community and the news media to discuss the lessons learned from this past year And how to meet the growing need for trustworthy Knowledge not just information, but knowledge contextualized information that is of value to people in their own lives We're going to explore how different stakeholders have worked to try and Try and deter misinformation and disinformation and we're going to describe the difference between these two things We're also going to talk about a first of its kind Collaboration between the wikimedia foundation wikipedia volunteers and the world health organization Highlighting new approaches that are now necessary and being taken by journalist public health experts and major websites like wikipedia to elevate accurate information So I could not be more excited to join this panel to moderate this panel We have a lot of interesting things to discuss and I think the way that we're going to do this is We're going to have each of our panelists just spend about a minute Introducing themselves talking a little bit about their own experience and then we'll get to a moderated discussion We want you to also submit your questions, which you can do at any point during the chat So without further ado, let me introduce you to our first house dr. Julio Frank He's president of the University of Miami. He's Mexico's former minister of health And I have to say on a personal note the last time we had a chance to actually speak was during the 2009 Pandemic so dr. Frank. I hope we can get together at times other than just pandemics. It's an honor to have you here today Thank you. Thank you, Sanjay. It's it's I'm really delighted to join this very distinguished panel You know for me, this is the fifth pandemic Responsive which I have had our played some decision-making role and one thing I've learned is that In a pandemic you have of course the communicable disease Covid-19 the communicable disease, but you also have a Communicated disease a disease of communication as an as a trained public health physician that I am if I were to make a Diagnosis on the ladder. I Thought you know, there are four big categories. There's of course the Misinformation and this information this information is rooted in ignorance or prejudice This information is actually the deliberate distortion of reality to serve an agenda of some sort But then you also have what I would call hypo information and hyper information at information Typically government will hide data Sometimes to avoid the reputational or financial consequences of revealing for example, that you have an outbreak or or a pandemic Now, of course, what we've seen this pandemic is what what one could really call hyper information an over flow of Content sometimes from contradictory sources magnified by the widespread availability of information Sometimes not properly curated that may create confusion So I hope we'll be able to elaborate further on these different distortions that constitute the Communicated disease that sometimes compounds and makes fighting the communicable disease even more challenging Well, Dr. Frank. Thank you It's a major topic and one that probably doesn't typically get enough attention But unless we can solve or at least address the problem of miscommunication and discommunication I think everything else all the other advances suffer unless we can tackle that and And that brings us to dr. Netha Hussein who's a neuroscientist and also a leading Wikipedia and who's covering COVID-19 knowledge It's an audacious task Dr. Hussein to do this as much information that's coming in on a An hourly basis a minute by minute basis. So just thank you for all your work and the stage is yours Yes, my name is Netha Hussein and as Dr. Sanjay introduced I'm a medical doctor and I contribute to articles related to COVID-19 on English language, Wikipedia as well as contribute pictures to Wikimedia Commons the free media repository of Wikipedia the Wikimedia Foundation and In this panel, I'm very interested in talking about the backstage like how volunteers came together and like processed this huge info information that came on an hourly basis and Made sense of it and presented it in a language that is simple for readers to understand And this not only happened in English, but happened in over 300 language editions of Wikipedia And it's a huge task to keep all this information updated at the same time Fighting misinformation that may creep into some of our articles. So this is the aspect that I would like to focus on Well, again, thank you for your your work in advance. Well, I'm so curious about how some of that comes together just procedurally Dr. Elaine and so I see is a computational epidemiologist and assistant professor of school of public health Boston University Dr. And so I see Thank you so much Sanjay. I'm Very excited to be on this panel My work mostly focuses on how to use non-traditional data sources from places like social media Google searches and Mobile phones, how can we use that information to better understand public health to better communicate? And so also understand how this is read So I'm hoping to talk a little bit more about that today I've also been very focused during this pandemic on misinformation specifically on the African continent I was born and raised in Cameroon. So I have a special love for Africa And so I've mostly been thinking about that and writing about that and hope to talk about that as well Well, thank you. And you know, I remember dr. And so I see the idea that Bad information can travel as quickly as the virus itself. Sometimes I think is it's it's really important Dr. Peter Singer special advisor to the director general of the World Health Organization Again, thank you for your work. I can't imagine it's ever been more important You're joining us from Vancouver and the stage is yours Thank you. Thank you so much, Sanjane. It's great to be here with With you and the whole panel I'm gonna want to focus in on reaching people with accurate information through partnerships And then the deeper values at stake trust and justice and on partnerships I just want to take this opportunity on behalf of the World Health Organization To offer our respect and appreciation to all the Wikimediants For all the work that they do Including in the context of the partnership with the World Health Organization Which is shaping 5,000 plus coven related articles on wikipedia in 175 languages to promote Accurate information and combat misinformation And I hope that more to say but broader partnerships as well, but you know, this isn't your grandfather or grandmother's World Health Organization to quote an old Oldsmobile lad. This is one that's really pushing out Accurate information in partnership Through social media channels and through traditional media To reach billions of people around the world to try and improve their health and and to improve the justice and equity Of our fight against coven, which is really the most fundamental Issue, you know the three key issues in covet that we've learned I think Are equity equity inequity and I'll leave it there and back to you sanjay and delighted to be with you all Yeah, thank you, peter. That's the nature of a pandemic. We're all in this together We say it all the time, but it but it means something. I mean that's that's uh, Something we'll certainly come back to So we'll go ahead and start the the discussion now and again I'll encourage anybody who wants to to go ahead and put some questions Submit those we'll try and get to as many of those as we can The doctor is saying let me let me start with you I am part of the reason I really wanted to do this panel today was to just sort of hear How it all works with with wikipedia. I mean wikipedia is obviously providing The right information, but at the same time you have to point out misinformation In some ways, there's a benefit. I imagine of wikipedia not being a news organization because you're not under the same sort of Time pressures, but just tell me about your how does it all work for you? Yes, uh on wikipedia it focuses on giving slow information So we are not as quick as the news media to like churn out information and like push it out there But we wait a little bit longer and look at the evidence and And volunteers contribute to wikipedia pages after after lengthy discussions on top pages of different articles And wikipedia also has several protections to ensure that misinformation and vandalism is kept away from its articles as much as possible So for example, uh, we have a wikipedia article on covid 19 And uh, it is semi protected which means that only registered users with a certain number of edits will be able to edit that article And this article also has a top page What users can discuss about controversial things Controversial parts of the article until they reach a reach a consensus or about the scientific evidence related to that And wikipedia also has excellent policies related to verifiability on neutrality Which means that everything you add on wikipedia has to be verifiable from a secondary source And it should be neutral in content And we also have like several guidelines about real reliable sources And these sources which do not meet this criteria cannot be cited on wikipedia And when it comes to medical content related to The pandemic or the vaccine and these standards are exceptionally high And uh, some and these are some of the extra protection mechanisms that we have on wikipedia That helps to ensure its trustworthiness I'm going to the back end. We have an rb of volunteers. They are not only experts But we have people who are interested in grammar check Librarians who are interested in like Getting sources We have people who are just around to ensure that the articles are copy edited So this huge army of volunteers who work harmoniously Make the wikipedia articles like up to date and reliable And yes, but you also mentioned in mentioned about misinformation And yes misinformation can sometimes creep into these articles But because of all these excellent policies technology and people in place We have been relatively successful in keeping our articles Free from misinformation Yeah, you know in preparation for this panel. I did go To wikipedia and and really look through the article and I also clicked on the edits to see how it had been edited Over time to get an idea of the history of this article I'm curious though, you know, we are dealing certainly if you go back to the beginning of last year dealing with a novel virus So there's not a lot that is known about this What what is the level of evidence? Do you have how do you think about the level of evidence required? In order to to be able to stay On on a wikipedia page if someone talking about a particular therapeutic for example Or talking about a population of people who may or may not be affected by covet 19 How do you determine? Okay? Yeah, that that rises to the level of evidence we require to be on the page We usually look for a meta analysis and systematic reviews When it comes to like citing Something on a medical article these as I said before the standards for citing a reference on a wikipedia article Related to medicine is exceptionally high compared to say a biography article where it's normally enough to cite a news report Or or something else. So Medical articles have its own reliability guidelines And if you do not follow those reliability guidelines the information that you add May not stick on to that article. It may eventually be deleted and on the top pages the usually talk about what kind of evidence we do have about Like a particular topic. So if you get if you get a better I would if you have a better source Like say a systematic review or a meta analysis to to backup your your Backup a scientific evidence and that would be like that would be taken into the article for consideration So there's a lot of discussion going on about Like the existing evidence and it's only the best quality evidence that Gets to stick on to wikipedia and I'm also happy to mention that the world health organization has Has collated a lot of like good scientific articles related to covid 19 and we have been using the Like article tracker from the world health organization to pick up the best possible sources for wikipedia articles Dr. Singer, I mean She's talking about obviously some of the work that you you've been involved with and before we talk about The specific partnerships and as you're saying, you know trying to reach people where they are I'm curious, you know about the same question the level of evidence When world health organizations doing their briefings, they're putting out messaging Especially when dealing with the novel virus If you can take us behind the scenes a little bit How does consensus sort of get reached before a major announcement or statement will be made Yeah, that's a very good question Sanjay and it's really one of the reasons why the world needs a world health organization because Obviously the the evidence comes in at different levels of evidence randomized evidence met analysis systematic reviews Just like we were just talking about But the ability to reach consensus on that evidence through advisory groups through groups of people with representation right around the world Uh is actually one of the core functions core normative functions of the world health organization So it's through that kind of debate through that kind of discussion, but through representative inclusive and well-governed Uh discussions and I think it's also important to say that evidence changes Because knowledge evolves And people learn and so that's also a real time Dynamic phenomenon so one has to communicate not just the findings also the uncertainty And sometimes the change which is part some of the hardest uh hardest pieces of this I'm curious, you know when you when you hear misinformation and we're going to talk about the distinction between miss and disinformation here in a minute, but What do you think is fueling that? I mean, you know, it's always sort of struck me peter that you know, we're in a pandemic This is a terrible thing. You know that the world is is is going through What is fueling misinformation? Do you think it's purposely or purposefully destructive? I think It's trust You know, we talk a lot about information. We talk a lot about an infodemic Actually, what we have is a trust odemic And sometimes uh that trust is things like trust in government Which goes to much much deeper issues Sometime it's the trust of communities. You know to take a very concrete example If you're in the um African-american community in the united states You have a historical context for anything that's happening Including something like the tuskegee study and I think that's always on your mind And so that's why we have to think about trust underlying information Communities underlying trust and it really highlights the importance of community leaders themselves assimilating information making their own judgments and providing uh leadership, you know in some ways Leadership is what's underlying all of this and that's the most effective vaccine Against uh against covet. So I know I went through a number of players there for information through misinformation through trust Communities leadership, but that's the layers here I think that we're uh that we're really dealing with and and that's why I don't really like the term hesitancy It's it's kind of labeling people as being hesitant. Well, sometimes people who don't trust you have a reason not to trust you And sometimes people who don't trust you don't really have it. So it really depends I think on the community and the and the actual concrete example I mean along those lines then you know, you have to Tailor your message. I guess to some extent. I mean, I think you're you're right. I mean just humbly speaking That it's not a monolithic sort of thing You know, you have people who won't take the vaccine. You have people who will take the vaccine There's it is far more nuance than that and and that's important to acknowledge But how does a world health organization then reach? people Different countries different cultures different generations Yeah, so I mean firstly on the side of the message One needs the channels and so for example, we talked about the wikimedia partnership We've partnered with facebook It's gone to 2.2 billion viewers with google 300 million searches a day 15 million people reached through chatbots and through something called play a part together with the gaming industry 14 billion people in 2020 that's on the promoting accurate information side and On the removing misinformation side a million videos have been removed from facebook tiktok twitter and other platforms Based on those partnerships. So part of your reach question for messaging is around partnerships But it's not only the message. It's also the messenger And that's why it's really important to partner with youth groups with community groups with with all kinds of groups who themselves Um have to study reflect upon those messages Decide for themselves how to contextualize those in their in their communities in the barbershops in the churches and the mosques and the synagogues And uh, that's why it's so great to be Here with you sanjay and with this panel and with some uh, people who really Are very much focused on those community leaders and on those community partnerships pandemics start and end in communities leadership matters From heads of state to community leaders and let's really valorize the the community Leaders including by the way the wicca median volunteers who themselves are Showing leadership in promoting information and accurate information and saving lives You know, you know, it's it's a it's a great point. I have to tell you as well Peter as I have three teenage girls. I think you know 16 14 12 almost teenage As much as I'd like to believe they're never watching me on television talking about this stuff But they are still learning and and and I've been really pleased that it through their own sources TikTok social media, whatever it may be they often do get good information You know my 16 and 14 year old they got vaccinated right away. My 12 year olds now vaccinated as well They sought out a lot of their own information had intelligent conversations with me So to the extent that people may be dismissive of some of these other platforms They shouldn't be because it's reaching, you know, as you say people where they are And I got to say uh julio dr. Frank, you know, as I mentioned last time you and I spoke was in back in 2009 Oh, I think we've spoken since then but really had a conversation about something like this And I remember even back then there was a significant component of vaccine hesitancy In fact when I went back and looked at the data in 2009 at one point in the united states There was about 60 percent of the country Had some component and I to peter's point call a vaccine hesitancy call it I don't want to paint it with one sort of brush but people who Had the reasons to not get the vaccine It was high at one point and they found that oftentimes it was their own community People their their community nurse the doctor somebody that they knew they had a relationship who was most likely To be able to provide the knowledge that they needed to make a decision on this It wasn't necessarily as much psas or celebrities or tv news. It was people that they knew and trusted as a whole but There is a lot of misinformation out there dr. Frank You've you've seen a lot of this over over, you know The past few decades and the work that you do and as minister of health in mexico How unusual do you think is the situation right now? You know, there's been pandemics Accompanied my history the first recorded one in the in the 400th bc in Athens and the black death and the contact of europeans with native populations in the new world and You know throughout history, there's been a lot of misinformation ignorance prejudice the search for scapegoats But in recent history Although those elements of ignorance and prejudice will be present Especially because of the anxiety that an unknown pathogen creates in people and they need to find some explanation What I have to say that I have found unusual in this pandemic and I said this is my fifth pandemic In recent times pandemics are accelerating since the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century and they are One more manifestation of the way we are abusing our planet pandemics are as anthropogenic as climate change It's it's the way the unsustainable way in which we invade habit. That's the way we Reduce biodiversity the way we commercialize we we raise chickens and And pork. That's why we have swine flu and and and bird flu The way we commercialize in this whole cold wet markets So pandemics are accelerating as a reflection of the way we relate to our planet But in these five pandemics that I had seen before what I had not seen Was the active politicization of public health and the use of That's where you cross the barrier from misinformation which Maybe the product of ignorance or prejudice to this information Which is the active distortion of facts to achieve other goals for example political gain and I'm very Disturbed because I think part of the issue why we are Where we're lagging in our response globally And even in the wealthiest countries is because of that politicization of the responses started with face coverings It's now going into the active promotion of this information about vaccines And and I think this is why You know, I very much agree with a recent article by Yubal Harari where he summarized the pandemic In a I think what it's a very clear phrase. He said the pandemic has shown the triumph of science particularly in the development The rapid development of safe and effective vaccines the triumph of science and the failure of leadership and particularly political leadership And that failure has largely been deployed or exhibited by these failures of communication It started with the what I call hypo information. That's not distortion. That's the deliberate hiding of information beginning with the outbreak and And you know, I hope we have a chance to talk about new rules for the globe To emerge about timely reporting of outbreaks Because every time a country delays the reporting because they don't want to create panic And they don't want to suffer the trade and other economic consequences of saying they have an outbreak of a disease Every time a country behaves irresponsibly If that country puts everybody else at risk It's not just happening in China originally as as the pandemic moved throughout the world You saw in country after country leaders Minimizing it saying it's going to be gone creating a vacuum of information that then is filled by These other sources that are not credible and and that to me has been pretty to answer your question pretty Unusual, you know, as you said, there's uncertainty. It's a novel virus. We're learning as we go One thing is to acknowledge that and continue to accumulate But that's a very different situation When in the face of scientifically validated information like for example, the effectiveness of the use of face coverings or taking a vaccine political leaders actively contradict that to pursue other gains And and that's why I think the topic of this panel is so so important You know, you bring up the the there's a time when you do have a level of evidence to to be able to To say certain things with with conviction, you know, we now can say We know this virus can spread Even through asymptomatic spread Face coverings are important. Here's what they can do the vaccine has a certain effectiveness But going back to what you were saying in the beginning, you know, when this virus is starting to emerge initially One thing I saw dr. Frank was people often will put things into a box that they understand So you hear a coronavirus Sort of starting to spread It's a it's source in china. This sounds similar to something I've heard before SARS SARS was very frightening but it Ultimately infected around 8,000 people around the world had a 10 percent mortality So around 800 people died. This is going to be SARS or they say well, this is going to be a pandemic h1n1 That affected 60 million people in the united states within a year, but had a very low mortality rate My point is that people will immediately try to contextualize something that is novel and put it in that box They could be wildly wrong on that. But is that How do you sort of tackle that when you're When you're most of us as adults really don't deal with novel things kids deal with novel things all the time But when is the last time You saw something for the first time as an adult not very often So how do you how do you deal with that when you think of your roles a former minister of health now running a big university? When you don't have all the information you just err on the side of precautionary principle. How do you approach it? Yes, I mean the first thing is you need to be aware of the importance of communication I remember when when I was minister of health of Mexico was when we had several outbreaks of avian Flu and we had SARS And that's when though it chose started promoting. I had also worked in the way show previously on their dr. Brundtland started promoting the idea of preparedness plans And we built into the preparedness plans and this is still best practice a communication strategy It's got a big part It's as much as you know Creating a strategic stockpile and having good epidemiologic surveillance is to have A good communication study cannot be an afterthought it cannot be something you start improvising once you have the outbreak And it all starts with the timeliness of reporting And we have fantastic international health regulations, but we have very little ability to enforce them And so nothing happens if a country where an initial outbreak occurs Fails to report in a timely fashion and puts the entire rest of the world at risk That's that's been part of what's happening. We've been chasing after the virus because of the initial delay But communication needs to be an integral part of preparedness plans And you've got to be addressing exactly that question We're going to be learning new things and we've got to have a communication strategy as Peter was saying So that when new information comes on board and we need to change guidelines Instead of that being interpreted as oh, you know The government doesn't know what they're talking about because they said something different than they said two weeks ago You actually explain that that's what's going to happen And so you build what I would call the four C's of communications has to be clear Has to be concise Avoid excessive explanations. It has to be consistent. So for example, if you change guidelines as you gain more knowledge You are explaining that that's what you're doing and if you do those three things You achieve the fourth C which is it has to be credible And then communication becomes your ally in fighting the pandemic instead of being The source of a lot of the of the negative effects that we have seen this time around That's that's really well put and I mean and I think uh, dr. And so I see it sort of takes us straight to to you, you know, you you mentioned I have so many questions sort of you mentioned in your intro About the prevalence of covet 19 misinformation across the african continent in particular You know, I I think we've been talking about this, you know from sort of a u.s. centric Discussion point, but but what what common trends or does this this conversation rank true to you from what you're seeing In terms of the trends uh in africa Where where are people getting their information? And are they skeptical of certain sources of information? Yeah, I I think what I've seen from Talking to friends and family on the continent. It's it's very similar to all the points that the other panellists have already made A lot of information is coming from the usual sources like social media From mobile apps from news Television radio, but you also have a lot of information coming from leaders And in in countries where people actually trust their leaders That information is taking very seriously. So if a leader tells you there is no covet 19 Outbreak in our country you believe them and you know, you leave this daughter is not There's no outbreak in that country and that can have a very significant impact on the lives of people People can die as we've seen in some cases because they don't have the rights kind of information You know, it's I have to tell you Dr And so I say I was I was in tokyo recently, you know, I was there for the Olympics, but it was it was a very strange sort of experience because there was no Spectators or or anything. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen But one of the things I did while I was there I had a a long conversation with the vaccine minister In tokyo and I was talking about some of these same points that we're talking about now And he said something to me that really struck me which was that There is a fair amount of of a vaccine and I'll use the word hesitancy just for a shortcut peter But vaccine hesitancy in tokyo as well And when they started to really look at the social media profiles of people who were out there spreading this information There were often pictures of president trump now This is a japan we're talking about but there were leaders from in this case the united states that they were parroting, you know the same messages So the idea of a global miscommunication being able to spread so easily we talk about the value of social media But the misinformation can spread just as quickly What what have you seen and what do you think can be done about that? So one very good example is a study that came out of South Africa in 2015 and they actually show that 78 percent of anti-vaccination content came from the u.s So it just shows you how easy it is for information to spread globally It's really hard it's here to stop that I think there's you know As that the thing is said there's so many efforts that are ongoing with the nature when partnership Which is different platforms to stop the spread of misinformation But there's still other ways that that information still gets through and not everyone understands that this is misinformation and they take it as a fact So I think there's still a lot more work that can be done at the community level We know that community interventions work So actually having people at the community level will have been educated will are trusted Go whether it's door to door talking to people whether it's about vaccines so that they can actually get These information from a trusted source. So there's a higher probability of them actually believing that information and getting vaccinated for example Had you heard that statistic backersinger? That's so much of the misinformation is being exported from a country with you know, not even five percent of the world's population I mean, it depends on media intent. I hadn't heard the specific statistic It's not usually surprising and it also shows why You have to deal with a global problem with global solutions gets back to your earlier question About assimilating information People look at information differently and that kind of global representation representativeness is really important on the science and also Obviously on the ethics because underlying all these issues of information and trust The most fundamental issue is probably justice Let me ask you about something peter that's that's in the news right now And that has to do with with booster shots and I and I'm bringing this up metaphorically because We're in a situation where this week, maybe even tomorrow Uh, the united states, they will announce That booster shots will be recommended Uh in a sequential fashion, but ultimately for pretty much the entire country Third shots after after eight months have passed since your first two shots From a world health organization standpoint, you talk about equity equity equity How do you how do you sort of address something like this? If this is happening in the united states, what does that mean for other countries around the world? And what is the message that you put out there? Well, that's the issue. I mean dr. Tedros came out about two weeks ago And I think by the way i'm a little biased that he's really been a voice of moral clarity on this uh on this pandemic came and uh Asked for a pause on boosters at least through the fall Why? um in part on the science because the science still isn't quite as Compelling as it could be we'll see what the data shows tomorrow But largely on the ethics, you know, we've passed the scientific test on vaccines with flying colors as as julio was saying We failed the test of humanity One in two one in three people in the united states in the uk and canada Are fully vaccinated in many low-income countries that's One in a hundred one in ten if you're lucky and that is so self-defeating Because that's the way to make variants the more transmission there is The more variants they will be people are worried about the delta variant Well, there's a lot of letters of the greek alphabet left And so that injustice even if you You know don't act like you're your brother or sister's keeper and we're not really acting like that Even if you ignore the economic arguments and we kind of are ignoring the economic arguments You know the self It's self-defeating to have these levels of vaccine injustice around the world Because there's a finite risk that that'll generate a variant worse than delta That will come back and bite everybody and we'll all have to start again And so that's why I say justice is the most fundamental issue here Because things could get a lot better and I hope they will we all hope they will But they could get a lot worse and that's what's underlying the booster question because The argument is people should get their first dose Around the world before some people who are already well protected get their third dose So it's fundamentally an argument from from justice But also justice that's in our own self interest and that's why it's so crazy to see These huge amounts of injustice around vaccines Dr. Hussain, so you hear that And i'm just curious What does that mean to you then from a wikipedia perspective because there will be scientific articles that come out and say Uh if someone gets a third shot, they decrease the likelihood of being hospitalized by x They decrease the likelihood of dying by x and yet this point In terms of what is equitable. What is moral around the world is is wikipedia. Will they lean into That sort of discussion as well Yeah, but let me let me touch up on the point of equity and justice in general when it comes to the wikipedia perspective So here we look at providing free knowledge To everyone regardless of where they are Whichever geographical location they are so In contrast to vaccines, which are like finite resources that we can give to people wikipedia is freely accessible everywhere and this is I think this is a fundamental principle that all wikipedians are looking at like providing equity to everyone and when it comes to Like a vaccine related discussion I think that it's it's very difficult for me to predict the future of wikipedia because it's a collective of a large number of people who are discussing Who are looking at scientific evidence and uh like Coming out with um very beautiful discussions on talk pages and uh then coming to a consensus and On and presenting the consensus of the consensus on wikipedia articles So at this point it's quite hard for me to predict how it would be How the booster dose related discussion would present itself on wikipedia articles or its stock pages But what I can say is that we we are we present only slow information We are not very quick to give out the recent breaking news We do not have clickbaits. We do not have advertisements All wikipedia does is uh like wait for a little bit and see how things work out And when we have like solid scientific evidence in in like meta-analysis or systematic reviews Or like uh executive summaries from reputed organizations like the world health organization We use that kind of information as citations to present that in a Uh language that everybody can read and understand in multiple languages Dr saying one of the challenges I think I've had as a reporter Sometimes is that sometimes policy decisions are getting made With even pre-print data Um, you know right now even you know, we we are hearing about some pre-print Uh data that's coming out of israel. I'm staying on the booster conversation just because it is happening in the news right now But it's not peer reviewed. It's not published data and yet it's taken on a significant Sense of importance because decisions are getting made sometimes on that. How would you handle that? I think that on wikipedia, then we would say that uh, this country has we have different articles for like, um, How different countries responded to the pandemic? We have articles on how say israel responded to the pandemic, um, and India responded to the pandemics for example So when it comes to these specific articles, we have enough room to describe How things worked out in the policy level when it came to say booster doses or vaccination in general Or other policies related to the pandemic Um, and but when it comes to scientific articles, we keep it strictly scientific So I think that we we we were really good at separating policy from scientific evidence So when it comes to scientific articles, it's only scientific evidence and when it comes to Other articles related to policy or the impact of the pandemic or the state of vaccination in different countries We have that kind of information separated out into like sub uh Like different articles where you can like elaborate a little bit more about how things evolved evolved in time Well, I really I really do applaud you for this because it's challenging. I and I think to navigate that especially at a time when We're learning, you know, I don't want to say the information is changing because that's the wrong thing It's that we're learning and and people may perceive that as the information is changing, but it's different Dr. Frank, I do want to ask you You know, you stand at this really interesting intersection and you've you've seen so much you've been in government You're an academia. You're the president of the university Right now you're also in one of the states with the highest percentages in the country of unvaccinated people How how are you speaking to students this fall about safety? How do you how do you sort of reconcile that with what the state's policies are on vaccines and masks? And I wonder do you think of universities as a as a different sort of entity in all this? Sure You know, this has been a challenge But at the same time it's an opportunities universities exist exactly to produce and transmit and reproduce through education knowledge And we are guided by the principle of the pursuit of truth We understand that truth is a dynamic changing concept But we have standards of truth This is what what the whole enterprise of research is based. We can judge the truth content of a statement Again acknowledging its contradictor its dynamic, but we can still do that So this is what we've done. We we have you know, it's my professional field in addition to my oldest president of the university This is something that I that I do global public health driving on the forefront of Managing the pandemic in this university We we've managed to stay open throughout most of the pandemic since a year ago in the fall of 2020. We opened Because we believed in two things we believe in science if you apply the best science at that point And and into public health you can actually open safely And secondly, we believe in young people. It's the question of trust and Now things have been complicated by this other politicization of measures So as a public health professional, I use all the science And of course we're obligated to follow the laws and we always follow the laws whatever they are But we do have tools especially in the university context So with students when everyone was saying you cannot open again because these are college age students They are not going to follow the rules. That has proven to be absolutely wrong And we mobilized three sources First what I call persuasion through inspiration you tell people what what you're trying to do and you persuade by Making the values explicit. You're going to give up some of the social aspects of college life But for that you will have an in-person instruction, which is going to be a rich experience for you second positive peer pressure We deployed A group called public health ambassadors to exercise peer pressure and then third, you know credible sanctions if you break the rules There are sanctions So we continue on that. We're just about to start classes After one full year and where we had zero cases of documented classroom transmission of the virus But it's following the science And trusting people that if you have a clear communication You can get through this I personally issued more than 50 messages video messages to students and their parents throughout the previous academy They're almost one a week It was constant communication Adapting being clear concise credible and and and consistent and that gets you through So although there are things we cannot control like some of those restrictions We can adapt to that by applying the science and having a clear articulated communication strategy You are a you know a former minister of health and obviously again a president of university do are you parts of the discussions In the state about you know, what the policy should be. Do you Advocate on behalf of the university or is your your expertise sought out? Yes, and you know I I do think universities have a duty to inform public debate We need to be both excellent But also relevant. We need to be in the conversations and we need to bring evidence to bear Both in the way people behave based on scientific we derive evidence in the way professionals practice medicine nursing and in the way policy makers make policy It's it's evidence-based And that's what we produce and we have the duty as universities to proactively translate that science into evidence that the public and the policy makers can use and be very much part of that of that discussion And so that that we can you know have a Recent way of approaching crisis like the pandemic And Sanjay if I may say I just to agree with Julio traditional media does matter And so as you know, Dr. Tedros Maria who you've interviewed about Caracob our technical lead and others They must have done at least 200 press conferences by now With the world media on a regular basis follow-up interviews That really does matter the traditional media and on the young person point Social media helps a lot and what I would say to young people is equity is in your hands Being everybody can be an advocate everybody can be an activist everybody can be a champion And that and young people are often very very motivated to do that And so that terrible injustice that we were talking about before whether it's global or whether it's within communities within a country Or within a jurisdiction It's young people often using social media tools who can advocate to regress those regress those injustices, you know as dr. King said the Park of the moral universe is long and it bends towards justice and it's young people who keep bending it down down down more quickly Well, that that does inspire me to be honest, you know to hear those conversations because sometimes it can be quite dispiriting to hear What is happening? But when I think about the next generation, I it isn't it is inspiring as you say peter we have A lot of questions that are coming in from the audience and we don't have a lot of times I want to get to as many of these as I as I can the first question will be for you doctor and so I see What role can wikipedia play in addressing covet 19 misinformation across the african continent? I think wikipedia has a very significant role to play Because when you think about the african continent It's a very young continent with a median age of around 19 a lot of people that are Very fascinated about social media about online platforms A study that we did earlier in the pandemic looked at Searching some google to understand what kinds of information are people in different countries looking for specifically to identify gaps in information that public health officials could Focus on so what are people searching for on google that maybe they don't have access to Through their traditional media channels in their countries And I think wikipedia can have a similar role where people Looking at what people are searching for on wikipedia. What kinds of information? That's a camera and for example What kinds of information are people in camera and looking for on wikipedia and then use that as a catalyst to design more targeted communication to reach specific information Civic communities who might not have access to the kinds of information they need about COVID We we got a question sort of falls on this doctor who's saying this will be for for you How should wikipedia wikipedia cover the next? Epidemic pandemic better someone's Thinking ahead already, but I think the real question they're asking here is what are the lessons that have been learned from this time around Yes, I think that um, yeah from the experience one and a half year experience of like working on COVID-19 articles I think that we really need more experts to get involved into these articles Like uh, dr. Gupta has like rightly pointed out the need of like looking at evidence and what what we need is not only scientists Is a scientist but also sociologists, but also people who um edit articles Um, uh, copy edit articles and um, so we we need to expand our volunteer base Particularly are like expert volunteer base to be able to like discuss more around evidence and discuss around How to present this kind of information? To people in a very trustworthy way Secondly, I think that we need more people to contribute not only text but also media to articles Maybe photographs or videos or even data into our tables the tables that wikipedia has with updated information about statistics related to spread of the pandemic So it's mostly the people that I think that we need to focus on so that We can be prepared for the next pandemic with With our our volunteers Peter we we got a question here that I might throw to a few of the panelists, but I'll start with you How do you recommend the general public should evaluate information that they see in the press? I think as you were talking about people have the sources that they trust But how do they know where the real information is that they should trust? Yeah, I mean They That breaks down I think into the message and the messenger and on the message side I think the principles that julio was talking about on the sending end also apply on the receiving end Not everybody's can have a phd in epidemiology to evaluate You know chi square values in meta analysis But if the information is clear if the information is consistent if the information works in the context That I think is uh is going a long way, but I think In today's world the messenger also matters a lot And that's why the partnerships with credible sources of information Like the world health organization like national health authorities like the cdc and other national health authorities really matter And why at the end of the day? it's also community leaders in barbershops in beauty salons in mosques in churches in synagogues because I think for many people It's the person that you trust just as much as the message and that can be used for good or real But I think we have to spend as much time focusing on the messenger as as on the on the message And so it a lot of it comes down to trust and how we rebuild trust especially in a As julio was talking about an environment where trust has been fractured in many countries in the world and often trust in In uh in in government unfortunately and that by the way trust in government is a marker of Um variations shall we say in cumulative mortality in countries around the world where things like Static capacity is not as good a marker as some of those dynamic leadership trust things. It's really very very interesting Uh set of findings through at the end of the day. That's what matters. That's your final outcome Dr. Frank, do you I mean you mentioned it earlier these you've seen a lot of this But this has been politicized even in a way that you haven't seen before and I think that goes for As much as it pains me to say this but news sources as well, right? I mean people will look at a particular news source and immediately uh Accept or or expect a certain amount of bias from them even for science-based reporters uh, if you if you add to that that there is Emerging evidence that not everything is known right away. It leaves a lot of room for people to Uh immediately not trust uh at particular news organization seen as too liberal too conservative I can't really think of many organizations now that totally get a pass in this regard What what what do you think about that? What what does that mean then for the average person out there? How should they evaluate an article they read in the paper a news report they see on television? You know, I I'd like to echo Something that Dr. Hussein just just said a minute ago When I say it's been a triumph of science Of course the most visible thing has been in the life sciences First of all the understanding the sequencing of the of the genome of the virus in a few days the rapid deployment obviously Departing from decades of basic research It's not that the vaccines were suddenly started to to be manufactured. We had that foundation But as important as our investments in the life sciences that have led to this amazing vaccine we have We need to do more in the social and behavioral sciences to understand that human dimension Including what determines the credibility of a source because today That is literally as dangerous as the virus itself In fact, we tend to use almost to percentively Meta force drawn we we talk about a message going viral And and it does it, you know, that's that's why it's communicable disease and communicated disease It is it actually tends to reproduce In exponential ways And a and we we have seen this a bad message that suddenly gains a foothold Can lead to very irrational even social panic That's why communication has to be a key part and I would say as as netha said We need to invest more in the science of communication in understanding The the way it's received interpreted So we can bring that kind of insight That we bring for the life sciences in producing tests and medicines and vaccines We can bring that same kind of understanding into the way we message And and we understand as peter has said repeatedly the context the cultural context and and and we can be effective communicators As an integral part of the response If there's one big lesson on this front on the topic today from this pandemic We got to do a much better job of communicating and understanding The most effective ways of doing so You know, and I have to say as well I had this conversation with uh with dr. Fauci at one point This is a few months ago and he said something to me that I hadn't forgotten Which is that uh, he had read a study Basically talking about how Scientists were increasingly being perceived as arrogant And it really bothered him and it bothered me when I heard that as well But I think it's something that we have to pay attention to The humility especially in the face of something that we're all still learning about How to give good information without being overly dogmatic in this in this regard. I think is is really important and Dr. Fauci, I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that, you know, people will read a newspaper article They'll watch a news report right away. They're going to assume a certain level of bias There aren't many honest brokers if you will in society anymore How do you what would you advise people to do in terms of seeking out information? They should and can really trust Yeah, um I feel like the other panelists have picked up on a few really important points about You know having those trusted sources collaborate with news media or social media sites so they can provide accurate information But another thing that I just want to add in in addition to humility. I think it's also compassion Which I think it's something that has been missing especially around the Communication around vaccine hesitancy um, a lot of the communication has been around just grouping people And assuming that everyone who has not had a vaccine, especially in the us has not done so because They they they're choosing not to do so But in a lot of cases there are so many other factors that keep people from getting the vaccine Whether it's being unable to get a ride to the nearest hospital or not having someone to care for their children So they can actually go get a vaccine and so I think as public health um officials or researchers we need to Try to understand what people are going through And be able to to communicate with them in a very compassionate way as well I think that's a really really important point and you know one that I you know I try to take the heart each time, but you're right and and I and I live it as well I have patience I have friends of mine who've come to me with specific concerns And it would be improper to sort of paint them all with one brush as you're saying We are already and I didn't even realize but we're already sort of uh past time here But and there's still questions coming in. I hope that people will get a chance to actually interact with Some of you either through social media otherwise, but I I I do want to end this Possibly on a on a positive note. I don't want to I don't want to over do it because I want to be honest here But Dr. And so I'll just stay with you What are you are you hopeful right now when you put it all together in your own mind? Are you hopeful? What are you the most optimistic about? Um, I'm most optimistic about the fact that people are getting vaccines and people will get vaccine Um, I just want to end with a story. I had a friend who texted me last Two weeks ago from Tanzania and she was asking whether it was okay for her and her parents to get The vaccine that they had available because there was so much misinformation about vaccine And I encouraged her to get it and then a week later. She texted me again to thank me Because they hadn't had any side effects and she had been so worried about all the side effects and how they would experience so for me that is hope that Every single one of us has the ability to to create change to impact another person To get the vaccine and hopefully, you know, we can have more people vaccinated in the coming months Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Singer are you are there staying are the things that are making you hopeful right now? Are you still pretty much feeling like you're in the thick of it? Well, obviously we're all in the thick of it and the tragedy is it unfolds as you watch people gasping for air especially around the world in african other countries is Heartbreaking but to your question I am hopeful pandemics end This pandemic will end. It's only a matter of when it will end You know as Tedros said that timing is up to us And I often think of the words of uh, Nelson Mandela when it comes to this vaccine equity challenge Which is it always seems impossible until it's done and that's why in addition to compassion and humility And accuracy and of course admitting when you're wrong and all the things that make for good followership, which is the flip side of leadership We have to think of inspiration And yes, where young people come in I think We need to be inspired to do a much better job than we're doing on vaccine justice and I think we will be inspired and I think Obviously vaccines and and the other public health measures because vaccines and necessary but not sufficient Will end the pandemic. I am hopeful and I'm hopeful based on Leaders like Nelson Mandela again a bias Tedros And and the many people in communities that I see working hard and risking their lives to make this go away And it will go away. So you had a question, but hope I am hopeful. It's only a question of when that hope will be realized and that's in our hands Thank you for that peter Julio dr. Frank You've seen a lot. Are you are you hopeful? Is this is this a time for hope? I think it is You know, we're not defenseless We've uh, we've been able to quickly understand the virus. There's still a lot more learning But the speed of in which we've been learning about it the way the scientifically Validated information is spreading. Thanks to a large extent to the work of institutions like like The wikipedia, which I follow devotely and support We're not defenseless. We have seen acts of heroism around the world mostly through first responders Health professionals and other so-called essential workers. We've shown that they're essential There's been good things that have come out of the pandemic and most importantly, I think I do think this has been such a devastating pandemic unlike any of the others I had seen before That I think it's really brought a level of awareness that we need now to capitalize on We have a moral duty to learn the lessons We owe it to all the people who've lost their lives and their livelihoods Everyone who suffers so much to learn the lessons and there's a lot of lessons We need to be able to save the world And I am hopeful that we had to reach this point of a pandemic of such Terrible effects as the ones we're we're still living We need to finish this one and the number one item on the agenda is a assured vaccine justice as as Dr. Singer has been repeating That's our first order And I'm hopeful that leaders will stand up to that challenge and be able to meet that challenge And then we need to make a much better job of not allowing once the acute face Is is superseded not allowing this to disappear from our sphere of consciousness But actually keep the pressure so that we build a safer world And I think if we do that this will help us with other global challenges most important on top of that climate change and I think this has been a rude awakening I think for humankind We cannot continue to abuse our planet We do so at our peril I do hope that that lesson will be learned and I'm very hopeful because as the president of the university I see young people every day in action in this campus We've been open because young people actually were able to do the right thing the vast majority Of our students and and and that gives me great hope You know that the the the young people as we've said Will mobilize to see a much much more secure. This will be the defining event For the for the younger generations This will be it I think it's going to be up to them To really make sure that those lessons get learned. So as they mature and they look forward to future generations They build a much safer world Thank you for your voice dr. Frank in your decades of service as well. I've always uh appreciated listening to you Dr. Hussein, I hope I hope it gives you hope that you've just heard so many things about wikipedia And so complimentary of the work that you've been so involved with, you know, I know it's I'm sure it's been laborious I can't even imagine what your life has been like on top of the other work that you do and I think we all thank you for it I think you make us all better What what gives you hope are you hopeful? I'm definitely hopeful and yeah, but taking inspiration from the wikimedia model Well, like people Volunteers come together and collaborate people don't even know each other But they come together to collaborate to build up an encyclopedia and in the same way I think we can collaborate together to like end this pandemic To find to develop an effective vaccine against COVID-19 or to develop a potent antiviral medicine against COVID-19 And I agree to all the speakers who talked about compassion justice equity and on top of that We also need to find solutions to everyday problems like say combating misinformation Surrounding the pandemic providing education to millions of school children who are out of school Like creating infrastructure for internet connectivity in parts of the world where there is limited access to internet And limited access to information regarding the pandemic So these are some of the problems that wikimedia and start looking forward to solve in the coming In the future and I'm incredibly hopeful that not only wikipedia, but The rest of the world will also join in the efforts to not only combat the pandemic but also decrease the misinformation pandemic That we are seeing today Thank you all. I really appreciate that. Thank you. I know I you know, we spend so much time talking about spike proteins and IgG and vaccines and all that The information and how it gets out there I'm inspired by all of you and hopeful That we can do a good job because I think there's probably nothing more important So thank you all we're about to get cut off But let me just say thank you and I hope the audience was able to get something useful out of it today All of us are on social media as you heard. So if there's more questions, please reach out to us there Thanks for joining us Thank you. Thank you. Thank you