Some folks I saw who were duped by this story have doubled and tripled down, trying to make excuses.
- Maybe it was a different hospital.
- The "corporate" hospital management company was lying about having (literally zero) ivermectin patients to avoid embarrassment.
- The hospitals in Oklahoma are still overwhelmed, but it's because of out of control covid cases.
The fact that Rolling Stone printed the "update" should dispel all of that nonsense.
What happened here is much more straight-forward: Rolling Stone published a fake story because their reporters - like most of our media unfortunately - fundamentally don't care if something is true or false as long as it fits their narrative (in this case, that dumb rednecks were sucking down "horse dewormer" until they poisoned themselves instead of getting vaccinated).
They didn't bother to call the hospital, because basic journalistic standards flat out do not exist anymore.
And a predictable crowd of morons shared the story because they, too, are invested in their narrative and this story confirmed their biases with a clickable headline.
This could have been avoided at multiple stages, but it wasn't, and it won't be in the future.