Letter to the Editor Re: Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures

Misinformation led to an erroneous perception of risk in some cases with the consequent lack of adoption of preventive interventions and in others to unmotivated and irrational behaviour (eg panic shopping, shortage of supplies for personal protection such as face masks). Certainly, there is a need to acquire and/or deepen our scientific knowledge on this pandemic, since we know little about many aspects (eg immune response, duration of immune protection and effectiveness of adopted interventions), but we cannot prevent to adopt those measures that, although important and limiting personal freedoms, can avoid further and worse issues, in order to contain the spreading of the virus, and to reactivate as soon as possible the national economic system before its disruption.