There’s another thing spreading along with coronavirus: misinformation! It generally starts on the internet and is spread through social media, email, and text messages.  Beware of misinformation you should ignore.

Special thanks to Cleveland & Woodley Park Village for this information.

Let’s dispel just a few of the rumors here:

• Eating garlic will NOT prevent the infection
• Drinking colloidal silver will NOT kill the virus (and it can cause some very serious side effects)
• Drinking water every 15 minutes will NOT “flush out” the virus
• You WON’T kill the virus by drinking hot water, staying out of the sun, taking hot baths, or using a hairdryer
• The ability to hold your breath for 10 seconds does NOT mean you are virus-free
• The virus was NOT created in a lab, a vaccine for it was NOT developed years ago, and is NOT being withheld from the public by any government
• Currently, there are NO specific medicines that are recommended to prevent or treat COVID-19 (the disease caused by the virus)

Be skeptical of information sources that —

• Make claims that contradict recommendations from public health officials;
• Suggest they are providing inside information (e.g., information from someone at Stanford University or another otherwise reputable institution); or
• Promote conspiracy theories.

Be sure to get your information about coronavirus and COVID-19 from reputable sources.  Get your news from sites that —

• Have a mission to inform and protect the public, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO);
• Rely on experts who use well-accepted scientific analyses and whose work is published in reputable medical journals; and are not promoting or selling a product related to the information provided.

Want to know if a claim about the virus is true? Visit the World Health Organization's myth-busting webpage.