- Hi everyone
I'm Dr. Seema Yasmin and today, I am debunking some
of the most common myths about the coronavirus pandemic.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the majority of rumors
about COVID-19 circulating on the internet,
focus on preventing and treating the disease.
A few of these focus on things to eat and drink.
One viral post recommends sipping water
at least every 15 minutes to make sure
that the mouth and throat never get dry.
This post says, "Even if the virus gets into your mouth,
"drinking water or other liquids will wash them down
"through your throat and into the stomach.
"Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus."
Now obviously, hydration is imporant to health,
but there is no evidence whatsoever that drinking water
will protect you from the coronavirus
or flush the infection out of your body.
I've also seen this myth that if you eat enough garlic,
you can stave away COVID-19.
Some posts suggest brewing a tea out of garlic
and drinking that to prevent COVID-19.
And, that sounds disgusting.
Garlic is a well-known home remedy for colds and flus,
and it does contain some anti-microbial compounds,
but the World Health Organization is saying
that there's no evidence to say
that garlic can prevent COVID-19.
There are also myths about how to tell
if you have the disease.
A couple of these fake home testing methods
have been circulating on Facebook, Twitter,
and on WhatsApp, including my own family's WhatsApp group,
and they proport to be from experts at Stanford University
or from Taiwanese health experts, and they are not.
One of the myths is that you can tell if you
have COVID-19 by holding your breath for 10 seconds.
This myth says that if you can take a deep breath,
hold it for 10 seconds without coughing or discomfort,
that means that you don't have COVID-19.
Now, the thing is, the disease does affect the lungs.
It can cause cough and shortness of breath.
But while deep breathing exercises are not a bad idea,
they're not a way of diagnosing yourself at home.
Another misconception that's really confusing
is that the existing pneumonia vaccines
protect against COVID-19.
Now the thing is, pneumonia is a lung condition
that can be caused by many different types
of bacteria and viruses.
Those existing pneumonia vaccines don't directly protect
against the new coronavirus because nothing's
been developed for that new infection yet.
But the thing is, it's a really good idea to
be up-to-date on your pneumonia shots
because if you're protected against all
the other causes of pneumonia,
you're actually at lower risk of getting COVID-19.
That's because one chest infection with any bug
leaves you much more vulnerable to getting
a second or even a third chest infection.
One of the myths out there is that young people
are not at risk of contracting COVID-19
and it makes sense that that mythi is out there
because early on in the epidemic,
we were seeing the worst cases of illness in older people.
But the evidence shows that younger people
are just as likely to contract this disease
as older people, and as the pandemic grows,
and we get more data, we're seeing that younger kids
and teens can get really sick with this virus.
In fact, here in California, we've seen reports
that a 17-year old may have died from complications
related to COVID-19 and I know there
were so many news reports saying that younger people
don't get sick and don't wind up in the hospital.
But new data from the CDC shows that people
under the age of 54 make up a significant proportion
of those who wind up in hospital with COVID-19.
The Director General of the World Health Organization
warned young people about COVID-19 with this message:
- You're not invisible.
This virus could put you in hospital for weeks,
or even kill you.
- I know this part is scary and not what we want to hear,
but there is some new evidence that,
especially with babies and younger kids
and those who have pre-existing medical conditions,
they can wind up more severely sick with COVID-19
than school-aged children.
And even with no symptoms or mild sympoms,
kids and younger people can still spread this disease.
That's why we're saying this isn't the time
to have a regular spring break.
We have to do physical distancing, aggressively,
to stop the spread of disease.
Another rumor that's making the rounds is that
if you have a runny nose, it means you don't have COVID-19.
This is a new virus so we're learning more about it day
by day, but as the pandemic grows
and we're getting more data about symptoms,
we're seeing that many people do have a runny nose
and it can also cause a productive cough.
That's what we call it when somebody has a cough
that brings up sputum, also known as phloem.
Of course, the only true way of knowing
if you have COVID-19 is to get a test for the disease.
Other myths are all about the relationship
between temperature and the virus.
You may have even seen rumors
that drinking hot water prevents COVID-19
or that blasting a blow dryer into your mouth
will kill the virus.
There's even one my that goes as far as saying
that coronavirus hates the sun.
There's a poster going around that says the virus
is killed in temperatures
of 77 degrees Fahrenheit or greater.
But just look at Singapore, where more than 700 people
became infected while the temperatures were,
on average, like 88 degrees Fahrenheit
and it was really humid.
The reason I think this myth is getting traction
is because viral infections do have seasonality.
Some of them spread during winter months,
some during summer months.
The issue here, though, is that this is a new virus.
It doesn't have seasonality yet.
It is spreading like wildfire through all of us
because we are not immune, we haven't been exposed before.
So we don't exactly know what kind of seasonality
the new coronavirus will have if it becomes established.
You may have seen the myth that gargling with salt water
will prevent infection with the new coronavirus.
Salt water gargling is a well-known home remedy
for when you have a cold or flu,
and while it can give some people symptom relief
of a scratch throat, it doesn't treat or prevent COVID-19.
Another myth, antibiotics can treat COVID-19.
Taking antibiotics for COVID-19 might sound like a good idea
because antibiotics are used for treating chest infections.
But they only work when they're used against bacteria,
a completely different kind of bug to what causes COVID-19,
which is caused by a virus.
To treat the new coronavirus, you need anti-viral medicines.
There aren't any right now that are approved or proven
to work against COVID-19, but some are being tested.
Another myth that I keep seeing
is that if you have COVID-19,
you shouldn't take ibuprofen.
There's so much confusion out there
about whether COVID-19 patients
should or shouldn't take ibuprofen.
This all started when the French Minster For Health tweeted
that patients with COVID-19 should stay away from ibuprofen.
But it's unclear where
the minister's information first came from.
And then, there was a letter in a medical journal.
So a letter is different to a peer-reviewed study.
The letter was wondering whether,
because of the way ibuprofen works,
it could broadly make COVID-19 worse.
Ibuprofen is the medicine from a class of drugs known
as NSAIDs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Both the European's medicine agency
and the World Health Organization have come forward to say
there's no reason to stop using ibuprofen
for COVID-19 patients and in fact,
those medicines can be useful in treating the fever
and aches and pains associated with the disease.
And the other concern here is that when people see
these rumors circulating, they may already
be taking ibuprofen or an NSAID for
an existing medical condition and will get scared
and suddenly stop taking the medicine.
It's really important if you're already taking a medicine
that you don't stop taking it without first talking
to your health care provider.
That said, it's always a good idea to check in
with your health care provider.
That can be a doctor, a nurse,
or a pharmacist about any medication you're thinking
of taking to treat COVID-19.
I think it's really easy to look back at those myths
and think, I would never fall for that.
But in the face of so much fear and uncertainty,
even the smartest people can fall for false information.
Here are some quick tips for how to spot myths online.
If the information you're seeing is presented
in a way that's super sensationalized
and trying to stoke emotion,
then that's one warning sign that this could be a myth.
Always try and trace the information back
to its original source.
If you can't do that or if the original source looks shady,
then it's likely to be a myth.
Always look out for credible sources of health information,
such as the CDC and the World Health Organization.
I hope I've cleared up some myths about COVID-19.
If you have questions or concerns,
you can leave them in the comments
or reach me on my Twitter or Instagram.
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