Coronavirus fact vs. fiction – should we blame open borders?

There's a lot of misinformation out there about the coronavirus. In this podcast, which features content from The Wall Street Journal What's News podcast, I'm going to separate fact from fiction, and take a look at what we know for sure so far. I'm also going to address the question of open borders and the role that they have played in the spread of the virus. Plenty of people are saying that the virus is a sign that the world has become too integrated. But calls to reverse globalisation to prevent the spread of new illnesses are short-sighted and ignore the potential costs of a less-connected world.  – Felicity Duncan

The only thing spreading faster than coronavirus is coronavirus panic. Fake news and false cures are everywhere – an otherwise intelligent colleague today assured me that homeopathy will both prevent and cure the virus (to be 100% clear, homeopathy has never been found to be medically effective in hundreds of careful experimental studies and it will not cure or prevent coronavirus). As the economic and social costs mount up, hysteria is a distinct possibility.

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