Once again, a tweet from leading coronavirus downplayer Donald J. Trump has been hit with a user warning due to violating the site's rules about spreading "misleading and potentially harmful information."
On Sunday, Trump claimed to have received a "complete sign-off" from "White House Doctors" related to COVID-19. In the same tweet, Trump claimed that this purported sign-off means he's now "immune and "can't get it." Now, the tweet in question carries Twitter's aforementioned warning label:
In a statement to Reuters, a rep for Twitter added that Trump's tweet consisted of "misleading health claims" and would thus have its engagements "significantly limited." Over on Facebook, however, Trump's post—at the time of this writing—remains live without any warning label or other guidance on misleading health claims.
Earlier this month, both Twitter and Facebook took action when the former steak salesman inaccurately compared the season flu and the coronavirus in a post.
According to the latest CDC data, there have now been more than 213,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. alone. The total number of U.S.-based cases, per the CDC, is nearing 8 million.
Many health experts have argued that the U.S. is now seeing the start of a new wave of COVID-19, with the average number of daily confirmed new cases recently hitting its highest count since mid-August. The colder months, as has been widely discussed, have long been a source of concern for those closely tracking the pandemic statistics in the U.S.
"Part of the problem is America never really suppressed its COVID-19 cases to begin with," German Lopez of Vox noted in a recent piece.
