In 2014, Fair was profiled in the Washington Post, under the headline "A virus hunter faces the big one: Ebola." It began: "Joseph Fair hunts viruses. That's his thing. The 37-year-old American loves chasing dangerous pathogens, studying them in secure labs or searching for them in jungles where the microbes lurk." The whole story details Dr. Fair's work with Ebola - no mention of the supposed near-death experience from 2006, however.

And now we know Dr. Fair never had coronavirus, despite nearly a dozen appearances on NBC and MSNBC where he talked about having it or recovering from it. In the end, NBC's viewers were left with two very alarming - and false - impressions. First, that an expert virologist can take every precaution but can still catch COVID-19 through his eyes. False. Second, that tests can be so untrustworthy that you can have multiple negative tests and still have coronavirus. Craig Melvin described them as "false negative tests" in that initial report on May 14. Hoda Kotb said, "every time it came back negative, but clearly you have it." False. Anti-science. And truly damaging.

In articles and TV segments, millions of NBC readers and viewers are today left with the impression that Dr. Joseph Fair, a 42-year-old "virus hunter" (with the handle @CureFinder on Twitter) came down with a case of COVID-19 through his eyes that was so severe he was hospitalized in ICU for several days and that at least five "false negative" tests couldn't trace it. This pandemic is scary enough without this false storyline introduced into the news picture.

So what really happened? We don't know. I asked several medical experts, and it's unclear what the story really is. In one later MSNBC appearance, Fair discussed having a "panic attack" right before going to the hospital. But we don't know. Fair did not respond to repeated requests for comment. NBC has declined to comment on the record throughout the past month.

Fair has been regularly appearing on NBC and MSNBC, but has not been on the air since his tweet revealing the antibody test results on Tuesday. Shortly after I began making inquiries related to this story, Fair appeared on the Today show June 17 and was described as having recovered from a "possible covid-19 related illness." In that appearance, he said he would "absolutely" keep viewers posted on the results of the antibody test.

So far, there have been no on-air corrections. Or online -this NBC News story is still uncorrected, for example. The Today show website wrote a brief story, where they now describe what he had as a "severe illness."

• Mayhem in Minneapolis: Violent crime explodes since riots and moves to defund police - 8 people shot Tuesday over 2-hour period
• Former cop to AOC, Pelosi: 'Defund your protection first'
• "We mean literally abolish the police": Activists reject spin on movement's call to defund the police
• Tucker Carlson: Black Lives Matter demand to 'defund the police' is a power grab
• Reckless Twitter hashtag or serious future policy? US cops give RT their views on 'defund the police' campaign
• Not woke enough: Minneapolis protesters eject mayor from gathering because he doesn't want to defund police

• Almost 3 in 10 parents say social distancing is harming child's mental health: poll
• Mental toll: Heartbroken dad reveals son took his own life days before 13th birthday after struggling with coronavirus lockdown A
• Fear, isolation, depression: The mental health consequences of the pandemic lockdown
• 14 Ways to improve mental health during the world's biggest psychological experiment
• Prepare for a real pandemic: Self-isolation may save lives, but it exacerbates mental health issues & loneliness

Serbia's government and police have accused "foreign factors" of instigating unrest.

"Among those arrested are many foreign nationals from Bosnia, Montenegro but also from Great Britain and Tunisia," Rebic added. Local reports indicate that the Briton is 24 years old and the Tunisian is 54.

Rebic displayed the men's passports at the press conference, holding them up as an example of the "foreign factors" supposedly influencing the protests.

"Serbia welcomed them hoping that they would come to have a good time with us, but they came to destroy and attack the police," he said.

The protests are a multifaceted affair, and kicked off on Tuesday when Vucic announced the return of strict lockdown measures, in a bid to clamp down on the country's rising rate of coronavirus infections. Vucic brought in the lockdown immediately before departing for Paris, where he met with French and German leaders to discuss negotiations with the breakaway province of Kosovo.

Nationalists accused him of conspiring with the West to recognize Kosovo, and their presence on the streets was soon met with a cohort of pro-western protesters, who shouted down anyone waving the Serbian flag or chanting nationalist slogans.

Serbia's defense minister called the protests and riots a "coup attempt," aimed at provoking "a civil war in Serbia."

Some 14 police officers were injured in Friday night's clashes, bringing the total number of injured cops to 130 since Tuesday, Rebic said. The police chief did not say how many protesters were hurt.

• UK's quantitative easing ponzi-scheme injecting even more cash than during the crash of '08
• UK's lockdown could cause extra 35,000 extra cancer deaths due to delayed diagnosis and treatment