Coronavirus misinformation is growing increasingly bizarre, and increasingly dangerous

iNews ^ | 03/11/2020 | Ruchira Sharma

[SeekAndFind]

Misinformation about the coronavirus is continuing to spread online, and bleed into offline spaces as well, leading to some widespread misconceptions and confusion about the coronavirus. Experts say a lack of high-quality information has allowed false claims to fill in the gaps, raising concerns that people are actually following dangerous advice as a result.

You may have seen some of the information yourself, whether it's on your Facebook feed, an email forwarded from an uncle you haven't spoken to in years, or even published by some news outlets. From the evidence-free recommendation of vitamin C as a cure, to claims people are putting condoms on their fingers as protection, the inaccurate claims keep circulating.

Like many previous bits of misinformation, many are simply repeatedly reshared screenshots, or copy-and-pasted messages with unverified or factually incorrect information. Here's the truth behind some of the most questionable ones.

There's no evidence 'high-dose' Vitamin C can stop Coronavirus

A 'verified statement' from a university hospital in China claims that high doses of vitamin C can achieve good results in Coronavirus patients. According to Todd Ellerin, MD at Harvard Health Publishing, there’s no evidence that “supplements, such as vitamin C, or probiotics will help speed recovery.” 

Similarly, taking supplements isn’t likely to help prevent or cure Coronavirus, reports the Washington Post.

That hasn’t stopped misinformation about the vitamin spreading, primarily based on a screenshot of a 'report' apparently featuring quotes from a doctor in a South Korean hospital, and someone claiming to be a physician in China who claim to have seen symptoms disappear from users who had taken it. This is being re-shared either word for word, or as a similar screenshot, while the quotes have been used in numerous online stories of outlets as well. 

It isn’t actually a verified statement from China's Xi'an Jiatong University Second Hospital, and doesn’t appear among the hospital's other Covid-19 news updates on the website.

The post in fact came from Andrew W Saul, the editor-in-chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, an alternative therapy unsupported by scientific evidence. One of the quotes in his press release has been attributed to Richard Z Cheng, who claims to be a doctor with links to vitamin C trials in China - and also involved in an Orthomolecular Medicine society. 

However, vitamin C is being examined in China for its potential benefits against coronavirus, with a clinical trial document from last month showing that studies were underway. The predicted completion date is September of this year, so vitamin C is not at the moment considered a viable treatment or cure.

The NHS and World Health Organisation have also confirmed that there is no specific cure to coronavirus yet.

People aren't using condoms on their fingers to protect against Coronavirus

Over the last week, multiple online tabloids produced stories claiming that people were using condoms on their fingers to protect from Coronavirus, with some of these stories reaching hundreds of thousands of people. This appears to have originated around a month ago, with an image circulating on Chinese social network Weibo, around February 6, of someone pressing a lift button with a condom on their finger.

Contextual clues suggest this was a genuine joke, but on February 7 an image of an empty condom stand in a Singapore supermarket appeared on Reddit, under a joke title that Singapore residents were using the quarantine to have sex instead. Reports differ on how widespread the shortage of condoms actually was, though there's certainly some photographic evidence to suggest some stores were running out.

Then the story picked up on February 12, when Durex Singapore responded to it's meme-worthy reputation during the quarantine with a joking Facebook post about using the product as protection when pressing buttons in lifts. This post was later removed.

Alistair Reid, editor of fact checking site First Draft highlighted how the picture many outlets used appeared to be taken from the Reddit thread, a month beforehand. This was combined with the previous images from around the internet, including edited versions of the durex ads, to put the various tabloid stories together.

One news story claims: "The latest [coronavirus protection] strategy allegedly sees people panic-buying packets of condoms to put them on their fingers to protect against the virus when pushing elevator buttons in buildings."

There's no evidence this is a widespread practice.

It's not a good idea to make your own hand sanitiser

In recent days, some people have been panic-buying and stockpiling hand sanitiser, and even profiteering on online sales sites. However, while hand sanitiser is effective, there's no requirement for it in place of hand-washing. Both the WHO and PHE confirm one of those most effective ways to stop the spread of Covid-19 is washing hands with soap. Hand sanitiser is an option if that isn't possible.

"Proper hand washing is the most effective method and this should be your first choice," explains PHE.

Despite this, the demand has continues which has led to shortages - a potential problem for people who rely on it for other reasons. This shortage has also led to dubious explanations of how to produce your own hand sanitiser.

The explanations seem to be inspired by a spike in search activity noticed by a range of outlets across the world, likely inspired by people discovering the shortage. Some outlets have responded to this with recipes, on the assumption that anything with more than 60% alcohol will be just as effective - but the evidence for that is limited.

Dr Jenna Macciochi, an immunologist based at Sussex University, said to HuffPo UK: "I wouldn’t try and make your own sanitiser at home. It’s not necessary for most people who have access to regular hand washing with soap and water, which is perfectly sufficient. [Homemade sanitiser] will most likely be less effective than ones that you can buy and have a known amount of alcohol in them."

Store bought hand sanitisers will also often have emollients to counter the harshness of the alcohol on the skin. Home made ones could risk hurting your hands as a result, Sally Bloomfield, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told The Guardian.

The government doesn't recommend not shaking hands

Claims that the government recommended people not shaking hands are partially unfounded. An article in The Sun on Wednesday claimed that the NHS warned people to ban handshakes, but fact checking site Full Fact found this was not the case. PHE confirmed that the government were not limiting or even banning handshaking.

"We may get to a point where if we see more widespread infection we ask people to limit the social contact they have with each other," said Prof Paul Cosford, Emeritus Medical Director at PHE.

"This could include limiting everyday interaction, although we’re not there yet."

The initial story was following up a clip of a BBC Breakfast interview with GP Dr Rosemary Leonard and Leeds University virologist Stephen Griffin, in which Dr Leonard said: "When we all walked into the BBC this morning, the charming people at the desk were all shaking our hands. I know it’s very British and very polite, we probably ought to stop shaking hands."

This was not officially issued advice as was initially reported, however, and this advice has not yet changed.

The confusion has likely been further exacerbated by questioning of Prime Minister Boris Johnson over whether he personally would stop shaking hands. Asked by Philip Schofield on This Morning earlier this week, Mr. Johnson echoed official advice, saying: "I’ve been going around hospitals as you can imagine and always shake hands. People make their own decisions. Washing them is the key."

Children don't need to be removed from schools

Many groups have sprung up about Coronavirus, and as you might expect, many of them are concerned parents. A common suggestion is that parents should take their children out of schools.

(Facebook)

This isn't recommended advice. At the current levels, Coronavirus doesn't present an extensive enough threat to justify this, and while a small number of schools have been closed, this is due to specific instances of a pupil or a parent testing positive for Coronavirus.

For parents who had not travelled with children to a high risk country and were considering taking their children out of school because of Coronavirus, a spokesperson for PHE said "we wouldn't recommend it."

"Our advice in that situation is just to continue life as normal."

This post was updated to clarify the position of Mr Cheng.

[windsorknot]

I enjoy oases of sanity that deal with the Wuhan Virus in a level-headed way.

[Bon mots]

Well, look at this:

An article published in Nature Medicine in 2015 with a co-author from Wuhan institute.
If you read the abstract it says they have assembled a virus in the lab that can transmit from bats to humans.

---

Remember that time when a virus escaped from a Chinese lab...

The 1977 H1N1 human influenza pandemic
Due to lab mishandling, a strain of the H1N1 influenza managed to escape from a Chinese facility that was likely trying to create a vaccine for the disease. The virus spread globally and had an infection rate of 20% to 70% among those exposed. Luckily, the strain of the virus caused only mild disease and few fatalities.

Various SARS outbreaks
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was a global epidemic in 2003 that caused 8,000 infections and 774 deaths across 29 countries.
Since the original epidemic, there have been six escapes of the virus from laboratories — four in Beijing, and an additional one each in Singapore and Taiwan.

In all cases, the virus escaped due to negligence and human error. Fortunately, none of those escapes led to a renewed outbreak.

Outside China too!

The 2007 Foot and Mouth (FMD) outbreak in the UK
FMD is a highly transmissible disease that infects cloven-hoofed animals. Outbreaks of the disease can cause billions of dollars in economic damage as millions of animals may need to be culled to limit the disease's spread. In 2007, 278 animals in the UK became infected with FMD after the virus escaped from a biosafety lab four kilometers away. The outbreak required 1,578 animals to be culled and cost an estimated 200 million pounds.

Smallpox outbreaks in Great Britain
From 1963 to 1978, there were three smallpox escapes from two different laboratories. All three were due to poor standards and bad practices within the labs. Three cases and at least 80 deaths were linked to the outbreaks.

The 1995 Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) outbreak
In 1995, 10,000 people in Venezuela and 75,000 people in Colombia fell ill with a VEE strain that had escaped from a lab. The outbreak caused upwards of 311 deaths and 3,000 cases of neurological complications.

Then there's Russia...

2000 - Russia
Smallpox infected 8 young children in Vladivostock who had played with discarded ampoules of smallpox vaccine has now been confirmed by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. Smallpox Russia

Just last year a lab explosion tore through a Russian bioweapons lab that stores Smallpox, Ebola and other nasty things.

1970 The Aral smallpox incident was a July 30, 1971 outbreak of the viral disease which occurred as a result of a field test at a Soviet biological weapons facility on an island in the Aral Sea. The incident sickened ten people, of whom three died, and came to widespread public notice only in 2002.

[DannyTN]

I saw a video out of Wuhan where they had mounted a styrofoam block outside the elevator and inside as well with toothpicks evenly placed apart.

The toothpick was for pressing elevator buttons.

[null and void]

but but but but "it's just the flu, bro!".

Finger cots. I forgot to buy finger cots!

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[Karliner]

People will start dying from fools leading fools. Quackwatch.

[Bon mots]

I went to my local store last week and stocked up on stuff that is now long gone.

All of these things are now gone, nearly gone or, apparently, soon will be:

• Face masks of any kind
• Rubber gloves
• Hand sanitizer
• Gatorade and/or Powerade
• Toilet Paper and Paper Towels
• Clorox
• Rubbing alcohol
• Cough Syrup
• Bottled water

The ones in red were gone from my local supermarket last night.

I don't get it about the toilet paper...
Bottled water either, do people expect the taps to stop delivering water? This isn't a hurricane!

[kiryandil]

Monitoring your vitamin C intake in the wintertime is ALWAYS a good idea.

Scurvy and the origin of the word "Limey" are not that far in our distant past.

Less well-known is that vitamin D is not a normal part of the American diet, especially in winter.

You mostly get it in fortified milk. For example, my aged mother doesn't drink milk, so she doesn't get it from there.

Vitamin D has been linked to tamping down upper respiratory tract infections.

It's mostly in fatty fish (salmon, sardines) and in fortified milk.

[Lazamataz]

Everyone is so screwed.

[BenLurkin]

How is any of that “misinformation” dangerous?

Are people going to get hurt putting condoms on their fingers?

[butlerweave]

Only use Vodka internally ,LOL

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Clorox

Time to buy CLX stocks.

[going hot]

I carry a box of number two pencils in my truck to use on various buttons around town.

[Salvey]

I’ve been told that number 3’s work better.

[Vermont Lt]

Vitamin C and D are usually deficient this time of year. They aren’t going to cure Coronavirus...but its not bad to get yourself good with nature.

[Vermont Lt]

My wife has a condition where she needs a lot to TP. Gross, I know. But it is what it is.

I drink bottled water in my truck. All the time. I always have a case of water behind me.

I went to costco the other day and all I bought was a case of bottled water, a big thing of wide charmin, and a case of oranges.

I was getting looks left and right.

Lets leave some for the folks that need it, OK?

[Buckeye McFrog]

IMHO the more dangerous misinformation are “facts” about the virus that are circulating online which are totally unsubstantiated (i.e. it can reinfect you up to 3 times after you recover, it kills by shutting down the part of the brain that controls breathing, etc.)

[Vermont Lt]

I started taking Vitamin D in December. It was a suggestion from a doc, just because I am easily affected by living in the dark confines of my office.

After a month, it was if someone literally turned a light on. I felt 100% better. I was stunned. I usually thought this extra vitamin stuff was a load of crap.

In my case it worked wonders. Your mileage may vary.

[going hot]

As long as you don’t chew the eraser off afterwards on the way home.

[Vermont Lt]

Those facts come from the Chinese studies. They are not peer reviewed.

The reinfected comes from the different strains of virus. It appears there are several mutations. The most common are the S (which is what is on the west coast.) The second is the L, which is in Italy.

If you had S and recovered, it “appeared” that if you got hit with L it would create a pretty fast cytokine (sp) storm. There was some research on it..but I haven’t seen anything more.

I saw the study (again, not peer reviewed) regarding the nervous system impact the other day. I haven’t seen anything else about it.

There ARE sources for some of this stuff. But its like pinning down a rumor at the office—it is elusive. And honestly, in most cases the people passing them along read only the headline. They haven’t read the study—which invites more people to look for things; or they misunderstood the purpose and results of the research.