Elon Musk is dangerously wrong about the novel coronavirus

For months, Elon Musk has been spreading doubt, confusion, and outright misinformation about the deadliest pandemic of our time.

Since the outbreak began, he’s promoted studies that suggest doctors are inflating case numbers for financial reasons, or that the vast majority of fatalities in Italy are due to other causes. He promoted a widely discredited paper on the benefits of chloroquine, which was debunked so quickly that both Twitter and Google Docs refused to host it. In another instance, he compared the outbreak to the common cold. On March 6th, he said simply “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” On March 14th, he said the “danger of panic still far exceeds danger of corona,” as part of a larger thread promoting chloroquine as an...

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