A year ago, COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency and since then, Facebook has helped health authorities reach billions of people with accurate information and supported health and economic relief efforts. They have connected over 2 billion people from 189 countries to reliable information about the coronavirus through their COVID-19 Information Center and informational messages, and removed more than 12 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram containing misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm.
They have partnered with governments in more than 120 countries, as well as multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, to deliver timely information about COVID-19, including through helplines on WhatsApp.
They have provided researchers and public health officials with real-time data and tools to help inform disease forecasting and understand the effectiveness of prevention measures. Through their Data for Good program, they have partnered with over 450 organizations in nearly 70 countries, the vast majority of which are leveraging Facebook’s tools to support the COVID-19 response in their communities. Facebook’s publicly available datasets were downloaded over a million times in the last year by nonprofits, public health officials and researchers.
In 2021, Facebook is focused on supporting health leaders and public officials in their work to vaccinate billions of people against COVID-19. Building trust and confidence in these vaccines is critical, so they are launching the largest worldwide campaign to help public health organizations share accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines and encourage people to get vaccinated as vaccines become available to them.
Facebook’s complete regarding their efforts to promote authoritative information about COVID-19 can be read here:https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/reaching-billions-of-people-with-covid-19-vaccine-information/
