This article has now been split into three parts, because of the pace of growth of this middle section.

Part 1: Covid-19 Facts, Analysis, and Advice
Part 2: Busting Covid-19 Myths
Part 3: Should My Game Be Canceled?

Each part will link to the other two, and they will all be extended and updated as necessary.

Don’t Panic, Art will still be here tomorrow!
Pattern image by
Matt Dragseth via FreeImages.com, text and layering by Mike

Part 2: Many A Covid-19 Myth Jabbed

• UPDATE March 19, 2020: 35 additional myths busted throughout the article, leading to the splitting of the original article into three.
• UPDATE March 22, 2020: Section 2.17 / 2.18 updated with more information about Pet infection & possible zoonosis.
• UPDATE March 27, 2020: New myths busted: 3.18 and 3.19 inserted, busting new myths about alleged treatments.
• UPDATE March 27, 2020: Additional information about 3.7, the impact of Cold Weather / Hot Weather / Winter / Summer, added.
• UPDATE March 27, 2020: New myths busted: 2.22 inserted, busting a new myth about race and Covid-19.
• UPDATE March 27, 2020: New myths busted: 2.23, 2.24, 2.25, and 2.26 inserted, busting new myths about ways to protect against Covid-19.
• UPDATE March 28, 2020: New Myths busted: 1.4 (Russian response), 2.27 (Flu Vaccine), 3.22 & 3.23 (Putative prevention methods).
• UPDATE March 29, 2020: Section 2.17 / 2.18 updated with more information about Pet infection & possible zoonosis.
• UPDATE March 30, 2020: Added a new section, “4. Coronavirus Scams”. Regretfully.
• UPDATE April 5, 2020: More things that won’t cure/prevent Coronavirus added in sections 3.24, 3.25, and 3.26. Added a new entry about the return of Prohibition in the US and UK in section 1.5, and a myth about Covis-19 and 5G phones in 1.6.
• UPDATE April 25, 2020: Added mention of Newsguard to the introduction. Added 1.7 about children being separated from parents, 1.8 about body-bags and a temporary hospital in an ice-skating rink, 1.9 about Sandra the Orangutang, 1.10 about a South African Priest, and 1.11 about a Poem allegedly about Covid-19. Added 2.28 about cleaning face-masks; and added 3.27-3.34 with new alleged cures and treatments. And added some more information about transmission to pets to 2.17/2.18. And fixed a couple of numbering errors.

Misinformation about Covid-19 has been spreading at warp speed in all directions since the beginnings of the current outbreak. It’s time to puncture some of those myths as many of those myths as possible. Do NOT spread these myths. Doing so undermines legitimate channels of information and could potentially kill people if they act from a position of unwarranted security. Alternatively, it could spread panic, and that helps no-one, as I explained in my opening remarks to part 1.

For the purposes of this debunking, I have (generally) divided the myths into three four categories:

• 1. Origins & Responses
• 2. Detection, Susceptibility & Spread
• 3. Treatments & Cures
• 4. Coronavirus Scams

I have no doubt that many entries in the second and third categories are the result of ignorant but well-meaning advice. People offering such myths should be corrected, not censured. The first category stems from a lot of speculation and not enough fact and should be squashed as quickly as possible when you encounter it. Don’t attack those echoing or repeating what they’ve heard, or even their belief in a theory; just puncture the theory and move on.

Never presume malice when fear and stupidity can account for people’s actions.

A brief word about format.

I write in the paragraphs above not to spread the myths. To ensure that I am practicing what I preach in this respect, I’m not even phrasing the myths in the form of misinformation that’s about to be busted; instead, I’m phrasing the headings in terms of the facts. For example, the myth might be:

“Eating [XYZ] increases immunity to Covid-19.”

This will be phrased as “Eating [XYZ] does not increase immunity to Covid-19.”

The first states a myth; the second states the truth of that myth.

UPDATE April 25, 2020: NewsGuard

NewsGuard have compiled a list of websites knowingly propagating or originating Coronavirus / Covid-19 misinformation, with 169 entries when I first made my notes for this update (now 190-odd). They want the public to use it when they see something outrageous or suspicious to see if the source is a known purveyor of nonsense – before you hit “share” or “retweet”. It seems to be helping a bit too – if it weren’t for Donald Trump, the number of new myths being added to this article would be a lot shorter than in recent weeks. Each site listed is also given an individual credibility report.

Check the list for yourself at the NewsGuard Coronavirus Misinformation Tracking Center.

While in the neighborhood, you might also want to read their article on the top Covid-19 myths, how they emerged, and how they spread across the internet.

While on the subject, fact checkers in Georgia have determined that the majority of misinformation circulating through the country originates with “openly pro-Russian” news websites and is overwhelmingly political in nature, including some BBC and CNN “clones” with inserted content, deliberately designed to mislead readers. While it’s questionable whether or not these are significant contributors to the global misinformation that is circulating, and hence are not listed as myths being “busted” on this page, it is food for thought. Amongst the misinformation being spread, according to the (Australian) ABC’s Factcheck newsletter, are stories that the virus was man-made in the US, that the EU had “abandoned” Italy, and that only authoritative countries like Russia and China could handle the outbreak. I don’t knoe about anyone else, but I find the thought that someone would seek to gain political advantage from the current situation to be deplorable and despicable.

1. Origins & Responses

1.1. Covid-19 does not derive from bats.

The best evidence at the moment says that the first humans to contract it were fishermen in China. Bats may be hosts to all sorts of nastiness, but that doesn’t make them the source of all ills. Other sources trace the initial outbreak to a live-animal market.

A few weeks before Covid-19 became known, there was a mild hysteria over Chinese bat soup. The potential for diseases to spread from Bat to Consumer was one of the frequent comments (which assumed that the soup was not hot enough to kill any pathogen present). The last such commentary predated news of the virus by a matter of days at best. I think that when the news broke about Covid-19 (and long before it was named that), people put two and two together to make 23.

1.2. Covid-19 was not genetically-engineered. It did not escape a lab, and it was not released by the Chinese to wipe out “unproductive” segments of their population.

More anti-Asian paranoia, this time courtesy of a disgraced Australian ex-politician appearing on right-wing TV. This virus has become one of the most intensely-studied diseases in the world over the last few weeks and months. No-one has reported finding the genetic markers that would be necessary signposts of artificial construction. And the Chinese revere their elderly, particularly in comparison to the West. They are not considered “unproductive” members of society. So this frothing fails to find credibility on every front.

1.3. Covid-19 was not created by the US to harm the Chinese Economy.

Where to begin with this rather silly conspiracy theory?

(1) There is no evidence that Covid-19 is artificial, as noted above.

(2) China doesn’t want to be the biggest economy in the world and has taken active measures to try and prevent that from happening; they don’t want the additional scrutiny that comes with the position, they don’t want the added responsibility, and they don’t want to be the currency of international trade because that means that the value of that currency would then be no longer under their control. And the US knows all this. So there was no need for such an action.

(3) The reason that the US and other nations have outlawed biological weapons is because it is too easy for these to rebound on the sender. Once released, a virus doesn’t care two bits about international boundaries. All you have to do is look at the number of deaths in the US, the number of cases there, the disruption being experienced by the US Economy, and you can immediately see that at least some of that would have been forecast to occur, and that the cost would be massively greater than the hypothetical gains.

I have absolutely no doubts that if Covid-19 had been cooked up in a lab somewhere in the US, there would have been some hyperactive idiots who would argue in favor of its deployment – and a lot of people shouting them down. If the proposal was even seriously contemplated, there would have been mass resignations and a lot of people speaking out about the proposal regardless of classification in the name of ‘national security’. This theory is total nonsense.

1.4. President Vladimir Putin did not release lions and/or tigers into the streets of Moscow to force citizens to stay indoors in response to the threat of Covid-19.

This has been doing the rounds on social media lately. It’s completely false. The footage/photo(s) that accompany the claim are from a 2016 film production in South Africa.

1.5 Alcohol has not, and is not going to be, banned in parts of the US or in the UK because of Covid-19.

Some people have equated the economic effects of official responses to the Covid-19 effects to the Great Depression (in reality, they are likely to be somewhere in between the GFC and the Depression, in terms of severity), and extrapolated that as a result various US states and the UK will ban the sale of alcohol. The closure of taverns, pubs, and other licensed premises has added further fuel to this fire, ignoring the fact that social distancing is the reason for those closures.

There have always been those arguing in favor of temperance; one need only look at the links between alcohol abuse and domestic violence or automobile accident deaths to understand their position. During the 1920s, the US listened and enacted Prohibition. Result: Criminals supplied booze and organized crime became extremely powerful. The alcohol was not subject to any sort of quality control measures, and was often based on methanol, not ethanol – making it extremely poisonous. More people died as a result than were saved, which is ultimately why Prohibition was repealed. Bottom line: it didn’t work, and everyone knows it (though they may not know why)..

It’s not an experiment that is ever likely to be repeated.

This is speculation, so I’m setting it apart from the above answer. What might happen is that a new tax is placed on alcohol, with the intention of progressively increasing it. This is what was done with tobacco, at least here in Australia, and alcohol kills far more people in a year than tobacco did prior to the anti-smoking campaigns. It’s an accepted fact that for every dollar that the price rises, the percentage of people who smoke drops by a specific percentage, and I don’t see why the same wouldn’t apply to alcohol. Note that I don’t think this will happen, and I won’t agree with it if it does, but it’s possible.

Related to the above, a facebook post here in Australia that was eventually shared more than 100,000 times which claimed that “all bottle shops will be closed at mindnight” was an April Fools’ Day prank.

1.6 5G phones/networks are not responsible for the Coronavirus.

This appears to be a vested axe-to-grind being retooled to buy into the crisis, in other words, an attempt to capitalize on the death and misery of thousands. That’s reprehensible and disgusting. But it’s also possible that this is simply paranoia about mobile phones and radiation combining with fear and confusion about the virus – in other words, adding two and two together to get twenty-two (I’m trying very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it’s not easy in all cases, as you’ll see).

There are at least three versions of this “theory” floating around out there, debunked by the fact checkers at Full Fact in the UK (Theory 1 – Theory 2 – Theory 3). Reuters have also investigated the claims and dismissed them.

A video, supposedly showing a 5G tower in China being torn down to stop the spread of the virus is wrongly captioned, according to Snopes. The video is not from 2020, dating from prior to the outbreak of the Coronavirus and the tower shown has nothing to do with 5G networks or Covid-19, making it a completely bogus wilful misrepresentation.

New: 1.7 Children are not being separated from their parents by hospitals

I’m not sure where this story originated but it has been circulating through the US, UK, and here in Australia. Children being transported to hospital can be accompanied by at least one parent. There may be restrictions on the number of visitors at the hospital, this varies from one institution to another. Fact checkers in all three nations have confirmed that at least one guardian/parent is OK.

New: 1.8 five hundred body-bags have NOT been delivered to a makeshift hospital in an ice-skating rink in Adelaide, South Australia.

As far as I can tell, this started with someone speculating that an ice-skating rink COULD be used as a temporary morgue. The ice-skating rink themselves have crushed the story, stating that to save on power bills while restrictions are in place, their refrigeration units have been shut down, anyway.

New: 1.9 Zookeepers are not washing their hands so often because of Coronavirus that an Orangutang has begin to imitate the hand motions.

There is a video that has been making the rounds on some social media in which a caption makes this claim while showing footage of Sandra the Orangutang wringing her hands in a hand-washing motion. The video actually dates from weeks before the first known case of Covid-19; the caption is – at best – wrong, and – at worst – deliberate misinformation.

New: 1.10 A South African Priest did not instruct his congregation to drink Dettol to prevent Coronavirus, killing 59.

This has been debunked by AFP and Politifact, and the South African police have decried and dismissed the story as false claims. A South African pastor did make churchgoers drink Dettol back in 2016; none died, but many became sick as a result. Afterwards, the manufacturer contacted the pastor to advise “in the strongest possible terms” that Dettol is not suitable for human consumption and advising him to stop the practice immediately. That incident is likely the foundation of the current fiction.

1.11 The Poem being circulated on Facebook, allegedly written by “Kathleen O’Mara” was not written in 1869 and is not eerily prescient.

The tale is that this poem was supposedly written in 1869 and reprinted during the 1919 pandemic. In fact, it was written by a teacher in Wisconsin named Catherine O’Mara in March, 2020.

2. Detection, Susceptibility & Spread

2.1. Chinese populations are not more susceptible to Covid-19. You are not more likely to catch it from an Asian or middle-eastern person than from any other particular nationality.

When the initial outbreak occurred in China, people prone to paranoia about Asians (and perhaps some with vested interests in anti-Asian sentiments) began spreading the notion that Asians were more susceptible. This was quickly debunked, and largely vanished from the conversation.

It was initially replaced with the slightly more valid suggestion that you were more likely to contract Covid-19 from an Asian – but that wasn’t because of their ethnicity, it was because they were more likely to have been in one of the initial hot-spots (China, Korea). This suggestion has also gone away as the virus has spread, but not before inciting sporadic acts of violence in different parts of the world against Asians.

The other major population segment about whom people are often paranoid are those deriving from the Middle East, and the third major center of an outbreak is Iran. While I’m unaware of any suggestion that such people should be avoided out of fear of Covid-19 – perhaps there wasn’t time before some other rumor took center-stage – the same ‘logic’ applies, and the same counterargument punctures the suggestion. Hopefully, with the fourth major center being Italy, such paranoid delusions are now behind us.

2.2. The Chance of catching Covid-19 is currently low, unless you visit an infection hot-spot.

This is true even in places like Italy, which is a known Covid-19 hot-spot. While there is a chance that you will catch it eventually, as many as 75% will never contract it. Yes, if you have recently been in Wuhan, or South Korea, or Iran, or Northern Italy, then you have a significantly increased risk – to such an extent that if you show symptoms your infection will be considered likely until proven otherwise, and you will be told to isolate yourself until you know for certain, as a precaution.

2.3. You are not more likely to catch it from someone who has been quarantined or released from isolation.

Once you have recovered from the virus, you are no longer infectious. So either you never had it, or you are no longer able to spread it; either way, the risks these people pose to the general population are not greater than that of a random stranger. Just the opposite.

2.4. Covid-19 is not spread through mosquito bites

The Coronavirus is a viral respiratory infection that spreads primarily through droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through saliva droplets or nasal discharge. There are no known cases of it being transferred from the blood of the victim.

2.5. Thermal Scanners have only limited effectiveness in identifying people with Covid-19.

Thermal scanners are good at identifying those with significant levels of fever. But people are infectious for up to two days before they develop a fever, and not everyone develops a fever. Testing has suggested that thermal scanners, at best, will pick up one case in three – until symptoms manifest.

2.6. Youth does not protect against Covid-19. The elderly are not more likely to catch it.

It is less likely to be serious in young patients, and more likely to be serious in elderly patients, but there is no evidence that any given age bracket confers protection against the virus. Everyone should protect themselves, because anyone can catch it.

2.7. Antibiotics are not effective at preventing or treating Covid-19.

For as long as I’ve been alive, patients have been demanding antibiotics when they have a serious viral infection. For a long time, doctors went along with this, on the presumption that it would do no harm. People took the medications until they felt better and then stopped. In the 1990s, possibly earlier, word began to circulate of a new breed of super-bugs that were resistant or even immune to antibiotics. These have only become more prevalent and dangerous over time, and the cause of their rise is the over-prescription of antibiotics. So the myth that antibiotics will do any good other than possibly protecting against (rare) secondary infections by bacteria is not only demonstrably false, but places the future health of the planet’s population at greater risk.

2.8. Being able to hold your breath for 10 seconds without discomfort or coughing doesn’t mean that you don’t have Covid-19.

Most young patients with Coronavirus will be able to hold their breaths for a lot longer than 10 seconds, and many elderly without the virus won’t be able to do it. So this “test” delivers both false negatives and false positives. Its therefore a totally unreliable guide.

2.9. Donating Blood is not a way to get tested for Covid-19.

So far as is known, no blood bank anywhere in the world is testing donations for Covid-19. There is no evidence that it is even carried by the blood. Giving blood is a good thing, but do it for the right reasons and not to obtain a false sense of security.

2.10. Covid-19 is more significant than the flu or automobile-related deaths.

The myth runs that because X people die in car accidents in a year, Covid-19 is not a big deal. A related myth draws the same comparison with flu deaths.

Obviously, the specific numbers will vary from place to place. So let’s take the US: Car accidents kill about 30,000 a year. Colds and Flu kill about 27,000 a year on average. Covid-19 could kill 300,000. It probably won’t, but it could. Car accidents aren’t contagious, they don’t cause mass panic (whether or not they should is a discussion for another day), and they don’t cause stock market crashes and global recessions.

2.11. Hand Sanitizer is not more effective than soap and water at killing Covid-19.

Soap and water actually kills and washes away the virus from the skin. Most home hand sanitizers are anti-bacterial, and may be less effective for the killing of viruses. Hospital-strength hand sanitizers may be a different answer but why not simply use something you know works?

2.12. Disinfecting every doorknob in your home is not an effective risk management strategy for the prevention of Covid-19.

I’m sure (with no evidence) that this was devised by someone to give someone else who was verging on panic, something to do. And then spread.

If you have Covid-19, then cleaning every surface within reach will give you something to do while you are in isolation and will reduce the risk of infecting others – but it’s a non-stop never-ending job until up to 9 days after you recover. And if anyone visiting you takes reasonable precautions – washing their hands after touching anything – it’s wasted effort, anyway.

If you are a healthy person who is caring for a Covid-19 patient, cleaning common surfaces might be more useful. While wearing a mask, etc – because you are still far more likely to contract it from direct exposure to someone’s coughing or sneezing. Just make sure that your hands don’t go anywhere near your face until you’ve washed your hands.

2.13. Children can have Coronavirus even if they don’t have headache and/or fever.

More than 50% of children with Covid-19 don’t have fever and more than 15% have no symptoms whatsoever but they still have the virus and others can still catch it from them. That said, unless they have come in close contact with someone who has the virus, they are unlikely to have caught it, so don’t panic.

2.14. If you have a cough or sniffle or sore throat, the odds are that you have an ordinary cough or sniffle and not the Coronavirus.

Unless a patient is having extreme difficulty in breathing, wait 24 hours and see if the symptoms have improved. If it hasn’t, call your GP and tell them that you have a persistent cough / sniffle. They will determine whether or not you need to get tested for the Coronavirus based on your particular circumstances. If you have a fever, don’t wait that 24 hours; contact your GP by telephone and inform them of your condition – and then self-isolate unless or until you have trouble breathing.

By far the most likely story right now is that you do not have Coronavirus. So don’t panic, don’t head straight for the local hospital’s emergency department, and don’t head straight to your doctor.

2.15. Covid-19 cannot mutate into an airborne pathogen.

Maybe in a Scifi/Horror movie. In real life, it doesn’t happen. Even when viruses mutate, as they all do, their mode of transmission doesn’t change. Influenza has mutated many thousands or millions of times but it remains a droplet infection.

2.16. Coronavirus does not thrive in the sinuses.

Again, people are confusing Covid-19 with other illnesses (the common cold in this case) that have an overlapping symptomology. It’s not the common cold.

Some people have extrapolated from this erroneous foundation to speculate that blow-drying your nostrils with warm air will kill the virus. It won’t, but it might kill the helpful bacteria that help the body fight off colds and other infections. It certainly won’t kill any virus in your throat.

2.17. Covid-19 is not spread by pets.
2.18. Pets are extremely unlikely to catch Covid-19.

There have been NO cases reported of pets getting Covid-19. There have been NO cases reported of people getting Covid-19 from pets. Since there are now 200,000 confirmed cases worldwide, any such report would represent a 1 in 200,000 event or more. If it was even seriously suspected anywhere that this had taken place, it would be headline news around the world. It isn’t and hasn’t been.

UPDATE 22 March 2020:

There are now unconfirmed reports from Hong Kong* that two dogs have contracted Covid-19 from their owners. It is noteworthy that a different breed of dog also owned by one of these individuals did not contract the illness. There are still NO reports of a human catching Covid-19 from a pet.

* It’s apparently a thing in Hong Kong to kiss your pets, and there have been suggestions that this is how the Virus was transferred. Hong Kong’s health authorities have been warning residents to stop this practice while Covid-19 remains a threat. I have to emphasize (1) that this is just a theory; and, (on the other hand), (2) there are still no reports, confirmed or otherwise, of this sort of event from anywhere else. So Don’t Panic!

UPDATE 29 March 2020:

Reports overnight from the veterinary department of Liège’s university in Belgium describe a case of a cat contracting a strain of Coronavirus. It is not confirmed that this is Covid-19, but it is believed that the cat contracted the illness from its owner. Veterinarians have questioned the testing methods, and said that even if it were true, it would be a rare and isolated incident, and not an event that should influence the general public.

To amplify that last point: There are now more than half-a-million active cases, worldwide. If pet-to-human or human-to-pet transfer were a thing, it would be completely obvious by now, and the vet downstairs from me would be inundated with appointments – not closing early.

UPDATE 25 April 2020:

There have now been two confirmed cases in the US of dogs catching Covid-19, presumably by licking their owner’s faces. Two – after several months. There are now more than 2.8 million confirmed human cases, world-wide, and we have two confirmed cases of pets catching the disease – and NONE of anyone else catching the Coronavirus from a pet. This isn’t something worth worrying abour.

2.19. Exposure to someone who has been exposed to Covid-19 is an extremely low-risk situation.

Let’s say that there’s a 15% chance of catching it from someone who has the virus (it is probably lower). That person doesn’t become infectious immediately, and there is an 85% chance that they won’t get it at all. Even if they ‘beat the odds’ and subsequently become ill, at worst there is only a 15% chance that you will have contracted it. The greater likelihood is that neither of you will get sick, or (if you do) that it will have been as a result of direct contact with an infected patient.

2.20. It’s not suspicious that Celebrities are catching Covid-19.

There are only three protective measures: social distancing, good sanitation, and self-isolation if necessary. A better lifestyle won’t protect you. Being wealthy won’t protect you. Being a germaphobe probably won’t protect you except insofar as you are already practicing those protective measures. There are relatively few people infected at the moment, so the risks are minuscule verging on the tiny – but growing.

But that’s for you and me (assuming neither of us is a household name). Celebrities (by definition) come into contact with dozens of people more than most, every single day. So I would have been greatly surprised if celebrities did NOT catch Covid-19.

The virus doesn’t discriminate. It has no way of knowing if you are Tom Hanks or Hom Tanks. It doesn’t pick and choose. If you are exposed to it, it will try to infect you. If you get it off your hands before it can do so, you won’t catch it. If you stay far enough away from people that it doesn’t get onto your hands in the first place, you can’t catch it.

2.21. Coronavirus isn’t just the flu.

No. The symptoms are different (but there is partial overlap) and Covid-19 is roughly 35 times as severe and likely to result in death. It’s not just the flu.

2.22. People of any race can catch Coronavirus.

Some sites known for spreading misinformation and rumor as fact – literally, fake news – have been suggesting that Black people can’t catch Covid-19. The “theory” states that the melanonin in their skin makes them more resistant.

It’s a pack of total nonsense. Covid-19 doesn’t attack the skin; skin cells are too tough for it. The best it can do is hang on until the skin brings it in contact with a bodily location which is more vulnerable, like the nasal cavity or mouth, eventually (in at least the worst cases) reaching the lungs and/or gastro systems.

No race is demonstrably more immune than any other, just as no race is demonstrably more vulnerable.

2.23. Gargling / Drinking Oils will not protect against Covid-19.
2.24. Gargling / Drinking Herbal Tea will not protect against Covid-19.
2.25. Gargling with Salt Water will not protect against Covid-19.
2.26. Gargling with Mouth Wash will not protect against Covid-19.

I’ve bunched these all together because they all seem to have emerged from different places at the same time. I could have added things like Cow Urine to the list, but those are fairly localized to one part of India, whereas these have the potential to spread beyond their site of origin, even if they have not yet done so.

Coating the throat with oil doesn’t protect you. Even if the oil is herbally-infused, or contains garlic.Save this stuff for cooking with.

Probably the number-one herbal tea market in the world is China. It didn’t do them much good. If you like Herbal tea, drink it for that reason alone; it’s more than good enough justification.

The Salt-Water Gargle is something that my old doctor (before I moved) was very big on, and I can confirm from personal experience that it is great for preventing (or unblocking) blocked sinuses and the headaches that they cause, and for mitigating against colds. But it doesn’t do squat against Covid-19.

Finally, anti-bacterial Mouth Wash can be a valuable adjunct to good oral health. It does a pretty good job of killing the mouth bacteria that cause tooth decay and bad breath, and if you care enough about those things to use Mouth Wash, you probably also brush thoroughly and regularly, which also helps. Covid-19 is a virus. Mouth wash is useless against it; it lurks inside the cells, as noted already.

2.27. The Flu Vaccine does not make you more susceptible to Covid-19.

There’s a myth that the Flu Vaccine makes you 36% more likely to catch Covid-19. This appears to be people with an existing ax to grind, popularly characterized as “Anti-Vaxxers”, who feel threatened and marginalized by the public, political, and media support for a Coronavirus Vaccine. It has long been held by some people that the flu vaccine stresses the immune system and reduces the protection against other illnesses. Others point at the medium that is used to contain the flu vaccine, which used to have a slight impact along these lines – but that medium hasn’t been used for at least 5 years. So the whole thing is a nonsense.

New: 2.28. You can’t disinfect a facemask by.microwaving it.

The Washington Post spoke to Benjamin Neumann, chair of the Department of Biological Science at Texas A&M University about this suggestion. He replied that while there was some laboratory evidence that microwaves could kill some viruses, there has been no confirmation that Covid-19 is one of them.

Furthermore, some masks – like the top-of-the-line N95 surgical masks have a small metal plate attached which “absolutely cannot go in a microwave”; other masks have a metal strip or wire to shape the mask to the user’s face, and can’t be microwaved safely; and still others will be rendered ineffective by the heat created by the microwaves.

It’s also a fire hazard, according to Reuters, and can potentially destroy your microwave oven. The CDC says that a washing machine should be more than sufficient to clean a face covering, with the detergent breaking down the virus.

If your mask can’t stand up to that, you really shouldn’t be reusing – or trusting – it, anyway.

3. Treatments & Cures

3.1. There is no known treatment.

There have been false reports of cures circulating, thanks to con-men. These are no more effective than a placebo and conceivably could be harmful. Trust me, when there is an effective treatment, you will hear about it.

3.2. Traditional Cold and Flu remedies are a shot in the dark and can NOT be assumed to keep you safe or make you safe to be around.

Which brings me to Traditional treatments. Those advocating such treatments are unable to answer one simple question: don’t they think that the Chinese, Koreans, Iranians, and Italians would have at least tried such treatments, and that the range of cultures means that a similarly broad range of possible treatments would have been trialed? How, then, do they explain the death rates in those places being so much higher than elsewhere? Eat chicken soup if you like it, but don’t expect it to be a miracle cure.

3.3. Ventolin will not cure the symptoms.

There are panic-stricken idiots out there who seem to think that Ventolin, which asthmatics need in order to breathe, will relieve the symptoms or cure Covid-19. No, No, No! Just because asthmatics are more susceptible to developing a more serious case requiring hospital treatment in the event of being infected by Covid-19 doesn’t mean that an anti-asthma medication will help anyone else – it won’t.

3.4. Ibuprofen is safe for Covid-19 patients to take.

There is no evidence to the support the ‘reckless opinion’ that Ibuprofen should be avoided.

3.5. Summer won’t make Covid-19 go away.
3.6 Going someplace warm will not protect you.

In the Southern hemisphere, autumn and winter is fast approaching. Conversely, in the Northern climes, summer is approaching. Some people have erroneously equated Covid-19 with influenza, and therefore expect that it will go away as summer takes hold. An extension of that logic is that going someplace tropical or semi-tropical will protect you from the virus. There is no evidence to support these contentions; just the opposite, in fact; the evidence says that the virus can spread just as readily in hot weather and warm climates. Just look at Spain’s experience as proof! What these will do is make self-isolation more frustrating, but DO IT ANYWAY if that is what is appropriate. Adopt protective measures.

3.7. Winter won’t kill Covid-19.

I have to admit that this myth makes absolutely no sense to me. I can only surmise that some people have taken the thought that Covid-19 is not like the flu and ‘run with it’, assuming that the Coronavirus is the exact opposite of the flu, and therefore goes away in conditions wherein you are at an increased risk of catching the flu. But that’s only a guess.

Regardless of the weather around you, the human body is designed to maintain an internal temperature of 36.5-37°C. Various immune-system responses increase that temperature when you have a virus because they are also optimized by nature to operate at a normal body temperature, and the disruption to normal biological activity within the host caused by an elevated temperature is less than the disruption to the infection. Running a fever is, biologically, the lesser of two evils. That means that the body is just as conducive to hosting the virus regardless of the external temperature.

UPDATE 27 March, 2020:

There is a Chinese paper circulating that suggests that Covid-19 has an infectious rate of 1.6% in summer and 2.6% in Winter.

This paper has NOT been peer-reviewed for validity, and has been criticized by medical experts for comparing countries without taking into account those countries differing national responses to the outbreak. Australia is NOT New Zealand is NOT the Bahamas is NOT Brazil is NOT… well, you get the point.

Each of those nations has responded to the situation in its own way, and ignoring those differences in favor of assuming their data can simply be aggregated because they are all warm at this time of year does not make the findings all that credible – and completely undermines their reliability.

3.8. Taking a hot bath does not prevent Covid-19.
3.9 Taking a cold shower does not prevent Covid-19.

It may make you more comfortable, depending on the temperature of the environment (or it may be less comfortable). Taking a hot bath does not have any substantial impact on your internal body temperature, only on how hard your body has to work to maintain that body temperature. If it’s cold out, your body shivers to prevent a decline in body temp. If it’s hot out, you sweat so that you can be cooled by evaporation. If it’s hot and humid, the effectiveness of this cooling mechanism is hampered, which is why a temperature can be insufferable/lethal in high humidity conditions that would be quite tolerable on days of lower humidity. So neither a hot bath nor a cold shower will aide you in avoiding infection; they will only increase or decrease your comfort level relative to the surrounding environment.

3.10. Hand Dryers will not kill the virus.

Use soap and water. That will and does kill the virus, if you have it on your hands from touching something handled by an infected person. A hand dryer does nothing but dry your hands afterwards (and some studies say that paper towels are even more hygienic, but that’s neither here nor there).

3.11. Ultraviolet disinfection lamps should not be used in an attempt to kill Covid-19.

UV lamps shouldn’t be used to sterilize hands or other areas of skin. Period.

UV can cause skin irritation. UV causes sunburn and skin cancer. UV can contribute to dehydration and heatstroke. Artificial sources may be less powerful than the sun, but that only mitigates the dangers, it doesn’t eliminate them.

And it has not been demonstrated that any level of UV will kill Covid-19. Certainly not as effectively as soap and water.

3.12. Spraying your body with alcohol or chlorine will not kill Covid-19.

Such substances will not kill any virus that has already entered your body, and can be harmful to clothes and to the mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth) that help to protect you from the virus. These substances may be useful in disinfecting surfaces, but not for human cleanliness.

3.13. Vaccines against Pneumonia do not protect against Covid-19.

Such vaccines target, and provide protection against, specific illnesses that cause this condition. They provide no protection against any disease that doesn’t match this genetic profile. Covid-19 is so different from all illnesses against which we can currently vaccinate that it will require its own specific vaccine.

That said, there is a caveat: Any illness has a negative impact on the immune system until the body has recovered. If you are susceptible to these respiratory conditions, vaccination against opportunist attacks is strongly recommended. It does no good to fight off Covid-19 only to get Pneumonia anyway.

3.14. Saline nasal sprays do not protect from Covid-19.

There is limited evidence that regularly rinsing the nose with saline solution can help recovery from the common cold. There is no evidence that such rinsing prevents ANY respiratory infection, and there are no cases in which such practices have protected people from contracting Covid-19.

3.15. Eating Garlic does not protect from Covid-19.

Garlic may have some anti-microbial properties, but there is no evidence that eating Garlic has protected people from Covid-19. On the contrary, just look at the situation in Italy, where Garlic is a recommended home remedy for just about everything. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration…

3.16. Eating Bananas does not protect for Covid-19.

Bananas are good for a lot of things – but this isn’t one of them.

3.17. Taking vitamin C will not protect from Covid-19.

Vitamin C is great for preventing Scurvy. There is – at best – anecdotal evidence that it helps ward off the common cold (and there are lots of studies out there that find this claim to be dubious). There is NO evidence that Vitamin C helps protect against Covid-19 in any way.

3.18. Drinking lots of water will not push the virus into the stomach where it will be killed by stomach acids.

The virus penetrates and lives IN the cells of the host. It may do so by way of the throat, but it can’t be washed away.

3.19 Sniffing boiling orange peel & cayenne pepper does not eradicate a Covid-19 infection.

The “theory” allegedly goes that this forces mucous to be discharged from the nostrils, washing away the virus. While it may make your nose run, that is only likely to spread the virus further, and this can exaggerate any existing respiratory problems – perhaps to the point (cumulative with other factors, like the impact of Covid-19) of death.

There is some suggestion that the difference between the 15-20% who require hospitalization and the 80-85% who do not relates to whether or not the virus, or discharge containing the virus, gets into the lungs. There is absolutely no proof of this, either way; but if it is the case, this so-called “treatment” only becomes more dangerous.

Seriously, this is playing Russian Roulette with your life and the lives of everyone who comes near you. Don’t do it.

3.20 Chloroquine is not the answer (but this might eventually change).

President Trump waxed poetic on the potential of Chloroquine, an anti-malaria medication in development, as a Covid-19 treatment, in his March 19 statement. In the course of that address, he stated that it had been approved by the FDA. It hasn’t, that’s number 1 – the FDA has NOT certified Chloroquine as safe for human consumption. It is undergoing laboratory testing as a possible treatment, nothing more.

The lessons from the first SARS vaccine should be remembered clearly – 60% of those to whom the medication was administered became worse, some fatally, and it had to be withdrawn. And that was after the FDA gave the green light.

Unfortunately, this enthusiasm led a couple to self-administer a medication for the killing of parasites in pet fish which contained Chloroquine Phosphate. He died, she is still in critical condition. The source I saw did not state whether or not they had even tested positive for Coronavirus! But even if they have done so, given the 80-85% who will only experience mild symptoms, the “cure” would seem to be far worse than the disease. It’s like cutting your head off to cure a headache – sure, the headache won’t bother you any more, but…

It’s entirely possible that in a safe dosage, Chloroquine will prove to be effective. It’s equally possible – if not far more probable – that sufficient dosage to impact the disease will be completely unsafe, or even that it has minimal or no effect. Such outcomes are common with new medications.

The FDA approvals process

The FDA approvals process is currently estimated to take 5-10 years. Even fast-tracking a Covid-19 treatment as much as humanly possible, it’s hard to see it being ready in less than six months, possibly longer, by reducing the safeguards.

Think about what’s involved. First, you have to determine what (if any) dosage is effective.

Then you need to find a delivery mechanism that is controllable and safe for humans and effective at delivering the drug; and ensure that there isn’t some horrible reaction to the combination.

Then you have to manufacture enough of the drug to have a human trial, and plan that trial, and enough placebo for those not selected to get the drug. Get that planning wrong and you can end up with another Thalidomide – where no-one noticed that the drug had not been tested on Pregnant Women even though it was an anti-morning sickness medication. So there are numerous cross-checks to make sure that the test doesn’t have gaps or holes, and may even need to be conducted in several phases.

Then you need to analyze the results and have that analysis confirmed by an independent third party.

Along the way, there will be inexplicable impacts – a percentage will undoubtedly have adverse effects – and each of these cases needs careful analysis to ensure that they aren’t indicative of a broader contra-indication.

Only if all these hoops are successfully jumped through can a treatment get approval for public use.

So, what’s happening with Chloroquine and the other potential treatments being looked at, world-wide? Well, a lot of things are being done in parallel that normally wouldn’t, because of the costs involved. Manufacture is proceeding on the assumption that the lab testing will show that the medication is effective. A different group are designing the trial on the assumption that the manufacturing process will be safe, and that the lab tests will be successful. Once enough of the medication has been manufactured for testing, the pharmaceutical company would normally stop; this time, they are going to proceed with manufacturing and packaging doses on the assumption that the human trials will be positive. The instant they are given the green light, they will be ready for mass-distribution.

There are so many places where this process could go off the rails. But it only has to work once for the dozens of treatments and vaccines currently in development or being tested for efficacy against the virus. What are the odds that one of them will tick every box? I alternate between pessimism (based on how long it took to develop effective anti-HIV medical treatments despite bucketloads of money) and optimism (based on the human history of developing vaccines). Right now, no-one knows.

It’s at least as likely that by the time a successful treatment has been developed, it will no longer be needed, because the Pandemic has burned out or been brought under control. But public confidence will take years to recover if that’s how this crisis ends – not with a flourish but with a soft whimper – whereas a successful cure / treatment / vaccine will reduce this to a mere annoyance, part of the fabric of society, just like the flu.

UPDATE April 25, 2020: A study in the US has now found that Chloroquine is of no benefit to sufferes of Covid-19.

3.21. Social Distancing is not an over-reaction; the virus will do significant damage.

The number of confirmed cases, world-wide, exceeded 200,000 overnight. If there are relatively few cases, and only 10,000 or so American Deaths, that will STILL be a significant event.

Social Distancing is designed to slow the rate of transmission of the virus, not stop it. The goal is to keep the number of victims in severe distress below the limits of the nation’s respirator capacity, so that there is medical assistance available to everyone who needs it. In Italy, that limit has been exceeded, and doctors are forced into triage situations, deciding who gets treatment and lives, and who does not, and dies, as they would in a war zone.

If you don’t see that happen eventually wherever you are, it will be because social distancing has worked; it will not be evidence that it was unnecessary.

3.22. Let’s talk about immunity after recovering from Covid-19 for a moment.

Sure. No-one knows for certain but it’s very very VERY likely that those who recover from Covid-19 will have an immunity to it for a period of time afterwards. How long that immunity will last is uncertain – it could be a year, a decade, or life. It’s an important question, because it will determine how frequently people will need to be vaccinated. But, once we have a vaccine, it’s a problem that’s at least a year away, and until we have enough vaccine for an effective mass-vaccination program, we have higher priorities.

3.23. Sipping or Drinking water will not cure Covid-19.
3.23. Drinking Tea (Herbal or otherwise) will not cure Covid-19.

These appear to be derivations of the myths busted in 2.23-2.26, above. They don’t work.

3.24: Drinking Alcohol will not prevent Covid-19.

As I understand it, the theory runs that alcohol-based hand sanitizer works as a means of killing Covid-19 so drinking alcohol should also do so. Problem is, as has been noted before, your stomach is where the alcohol ends up, and that’s not where the virus is. Maybe if you snorted it, and gargled it, and rubbed copious amounts of it into your eyes, it might possibly help a little – but that’s as good as it gets (ever had alcohol in your eyes? It’s not worth it).

3.25: Vitamin C will not prevent Covid-19.

I know I’ve already busted this (see 3.17, above) but it seems to be the myth that perpetually rises from the dead. Look, Vitamin C is at best a marginally beneficial substance in fighting off the common cold. There’s no evidence whatsoever that it helps in preventing Covid-19.

There is a report that high doses of Vitamin C delivered intravenously may be beneficial in the management of Covid-19, which has been investigated by the Australian Government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, who found no ‘robust, scientific’ evidence to support the validity of the ‘treatment’.

3.26: Regular use of a sauna will not prevent or mitigate Covid-19.

This story comes from YouTube, where a man identifying himself as “Dr Dan Lee Dimke” announces what he describes as the Achilles heel of the coronavirus – exposure to high temperatures. He claims that ending the virus is “remarkably easy” and cites “scientific studies” – a ‘few days of 20-minute sauna sessions will do the job. If you don’t have a sauna, spray water onto your face and aim the hot air from a blow dryer up your nose for 5 minutes twice a day. It looks authoritative, according to medicinenet.com – but it’s completely bogus, according to Anatoliy Gruzd, PhD, holder of the Canada Research Chair of Social Media Data Stewardship at Ryerson University, Toronto, where the Canadian Government has provided nearly a million dollars in funding to tackle Covid-19 misinformation.

New: 3.27: Natural Ginger Ale is neigther a cure nor a preventative.

This actually qualifies as a form of “Herbal Tea” which supposedly confers the dietary benefits of Ginger – which some claim includes bolstering the immune system. Not only is this claim unproven, not only are the dietary benefits of ginger unproven, but there is no evidence that those benefits can be transmitted by means of a Ginger Ale. Drink it if you like it – but for the flavor, not the health benefits.

New: 3.28: Lemon Juice and Bicarbonate Of Soda did not prevent people in Israel dying of Covid-19.

This has been squashed several times, but continues to crop up – which is suprising. The claim is false in many different ways, not least of which is that there have in fact been 198 deaths in that country. Even on the date of the first identified Facebook post, March 30, there had been 15 deaths.

There are those who suggest that this myth got started because Israel initially seemed to have relatively few deaths from Covid-19. There are also claims that the myth was an attempt by anti-zionists to imply that Israel engineered the virus, which falls victim to the same problem as many other Covid-19 conspiracy theories, ie that the virus is not artificial. Which makes this the first Covid-19 myth about a Covid-19 myth – a dubious distinction, to be sure.

New: 3.29: Induced Coughing does not assist in resisting Covid-19.

This myth gained massive publicity after being touted by author J. K. Rowling, who claimed to have had all the symptoms of Covid-19 and to have recovered with the help of this technique, which she learned from a video by a doctor from Queens Hospital, London.

— This technique will not clear virus from the lungs
— It can actively spread the virus over an even greater area
— It can actively infect others
— One of the symptoms is coughing, anyway
— In some places, depending on who is around you and where you are, this may even be illegal, if it is construed as deliberately coughing on an essential services worker (doctors, nurses, police, etc). In my state of New South Wales, that’s a A$5000.fine.

It won’t help you, could kill others, and could ruin your life. Talk about bad advice!

New: 3.30: Cocaine does not cure Covid-19.

I’ve never met anyone who could follow the alleged logic of this proposal, which first appeared at the end of January, 2020. The only sense I can make of it is that a stimulant might help overcome the lethargy that is one of the common symptoms. It turns out that this was produced by an online News Generator, which is a site designed to produce “Breaking News” Memes; but someone has deliberately obscured the watermark in the top-right corner to hide the origins of the story.

New: 3.31: There has been no Vaccine trial in Senegal.

The claim that seven children have died after being given a Covid-19 vaccination in Senegal is completely false and has been debunked by at least 6 fact-checking agencies in multiple countries. The allegation is contained in the voice-over to a video posted to Facebook.

The reality is that a man selling cosmetics door-to-door was arrested in Senegal for claiming to have a Vaccine in a joking manner – while wearing a Health Ministry T-shirt. If it weren’t for that last detail, he might not even have been arrested, just warned – but it was felt that the “official” air lent to his claim, regardless of its manner, elevated this “joke” to the level of a scam. But that hasn’t stopped it being distributed by a number of groups of anti-Vaxxers, unfortunately.

New: 3.32: Hand Sanitizer is not dangerous to pets.

Facebook claims that hand sanitizer contains elethyne glycol, which is used in anti-freeze and is toxic to humans, are completely false. So long as you don’t let your pet lick your hands immediately after applying hand sanitizer, there is no problem; break this fairly-obvious rule and your pet might get sick from the sanitizer, which are usually alcohol-based, but unless they are already at death’s door, even this is unlikely to kill them – though it will probably make them very miserable. For the brain-dead out there, let me point out that this does not mean that it’s a good idea to feed your pet hand sanitizer.

New: 3.33: People with Diabetes are not more likely to catch Covid-19.

In fact, there are no known co-morbidities that have been proven to increase the risks of infection, though it seems sensible to expect that those with compromised immune systems could be so proven. However, those with other co-morbidities are far more prone to become gravely ill, or even die. Chinese data suggests that the worst such impact is from smoking, but this is not supported by data from other countries, where respiratory problems like asthma are considered more serious.

New: 3.34: It is not safe to inject or ingest bleach or disinfectant. Don’t breathe the fumes, either.

We can thank the man in the White House for spreading this story all over the place, but he doesn’t appear to be the originator of this particular idiocy. That particular dishonor is reserved for Mark Grenon, leader of a group falsely promoting the use of an industrial cleaner as a Coronavirus cure.

The group, named Genesis II, claims to be a church, with Grenon as its “Archbishop”, who are in fact the largest producer and distributor of Chlorine Dioxide (the cleaning agent in question) in the US, claiming that it is a “miracle cure” for 99% of all diseases, including Cancer, Malaria, HIV/Aids, and Autism. Grenon claims to have written to Trump in the week prior to the infamous press conferance to tout the benefits of his church’s “product”.

In reality, this substance is toxic and can cause life-threatening side effects, according to the FDA, who have successfully forced the removal of Covid-19 claims from the websites of supporters in the Federal Courts.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is a microscopic grain of truth to the proposal, especially as reformulated by President Trump; the Coronavirus is contained within lipid-based cell walls when expelled from the body of an infected subject, ie an oil-like substance. Soap breaks the oil down, exposing the virus within to a hostile environment it is not equipped to face; it breaks down almost immediately. That’s why and how washing hands and cleaning surfaces kills it. So, if it were possible to coat the interior of the lungs in such a material without drowing in it, it might well kill the virus. It’s not; the “cure” would be 100% fatal.

4. Coronavirus Scams.

Two words that I hoped never to connect to each other, even though I knew better. Rather than trying to list every scam that comes to light, this section will provide specific advice on how to avoid the most prevalent cases.

• Do not open any video you receive in an e-mail.
• Do not click on any link to a video that you receive in an email unless you know and trust the source.
• Be careful buying online. You can’t buy a reliable test kit. You can’t buy a preventative agent. You may be able to buy low-quality masks. There has been at least one case of fraudulent hand sanitizer (won’t do you any good) being sold online.
• If you receive a contact seemingly from an official government body requesting details in order to process support or payments, check the link and proceed with caution. Remember that it’s easy for a link to claim to lead to one site and to actually lead to another. Be particularly suspicious of any such links using a link shortener like bit.ly. Government services don’t use them, so this is always a red flag.
• The CDC and WHO will NOT send anyone a direct email with news about the outbreak. This is a scam, don’t click on it.
• More Information / Source: https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/coronavirus-scams-and-bogus-products. Note that this article specifically covers scams currently targeting Australians, but if these scams are not targeting your nation yet, you can bet that they – or something similar – soon will be. But that’s why I’ve kept the information and advice as broad as possible.
• While there may be legitimate apps for the purpose, at least some apps claiming to track Coronavirus are actually ransomware. Only get your apps from a trusted source.

This article continues in part 3 in which I analyze the question: should your next game session (pick-up basketball game / scout jamboree / whatever) be canceled?

PRINCIPAL SOURCES (in no particular order):

1. ABC-TV (Australia): Coronavirus symptoms explained – what happens when you get COVID-19 and how likely is a full recovery?
2. ABC-TV (Australia): Coronavirus FAQ: Frequently asked questions about COVID-19
3. Australian Government Dept Of Health: Coronavirus (COVID-19) web-page as retrieved 14th March 2020
4. KVIA.com: Coronavirus Outbreak Timeline Fast Facts
5. Facebook: Coronavirus Q&A with Dr Norman Swan
6. ABC 7 (New York): Busting COVID-19 Coronavirus myths: Facts from the Centers for Disease Control
7. ABC News (Channel 24, Australia): “The Virus”, broadcast March 8th, 2020
8. ABC 7 (New York): How is Coronavirus spread? Symptoms, prevention, and how to prepare for a COVID-19 outbreak in the US
9. Worldometer: Coronavirus Web-page
10. ABC News (Channel 24, Australia): Covid-19 Stimulus Package Review & Analysis with David Spears, broadcast March 12th, 2020
11. World Health Organization via New York State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (Twitter Account)
12. Dr Faheem Younus, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases, University of Maryland UCH (Twitter Account)
13. ABC-TV (Australia): Fact Check Website