Warning: Fake Coronavirus Information Being Spread

While looking through my Facebook posts, I was disappointed to see, though not entirely surprised to see, a significant piece of misinformation surrounding COVID-19. The information supposedly came from Johns Hopkins, but I cannot imagine that such gross misinformation would come from there.

What I was surprised to see was that it was shared by the local Medical Reserve Corps. An MRC is a volunteer organization, backed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I understand that because they are volunteers, they might not have a full understanding of the science behind viruses and other disease causing agents, but I am still concerned that they did not catch the glaring errors in the post.

I don’t want to give the full text of the post, because I don’t want the material being shared further. But I’ll highlight some of the issues.

Issues

1. The post calls the virus a “protein molecule (DNA)” surrounded by lipids.

This statement should immediately cause everyone who has completed a high school biology course. Proteins aren’t the same as DNA and RNA. A protein is made of units called amino acids. Both DNA and RNA are made of nucleic acids, with DNA having nucleic acids made with deoxyribose (hence deoxyribonucleic) and RNA having nucleic acids made of ribose.

Second, coronaviruses are “RNA viruses” meaning that their genetic material is composed of RNA (Fehr and Periman 2015). A virus can use either DNA or RNA as its genetic material. While the post is in error about many things, it reasonable to say that a virus is not alive. Therefore it cannot be killed. It is basically a message that gets copied by living organisms, by hijacking the normal cell processes.

2. Listerine is not able to kill the virus.

While I am not a huge fan of the CDC, what will and will not break down these viruses is fairly well understood. The CDC suggests that an alcohol content of 60% ethanol or 70% isopropyl alcohol is required to break down the viral lipid layer (CDC). Meanwhile, Listerine only has an ABV of 26.9%, so it will not work. Most vodka won’t either, but Everclear would.

Best Practices

Using Soap

What the post really does get right is that the virus has membrane that holds it together. Lipids are dissolved by soap. It works in the same way that soap breaks up large molecules of fats and makes it easier to wash off grease. As a result, soap and hot water are really some of the best options for cleaning. Proper hand washing, for the correct amount of time, is very important to help prevent the spread of the infection.

Keep an Eye on Citations

If something is claimed to come from Johns Hopkins, try to see if there’s a link. If there’s no link, it probably didn’t come from them. I try to cite every source that I can, unless it’s common knowledge. And even then I will sometimes try to provide references. If the source has an official social media account, you can also check there. In this case, Johns Hopkins Medicine was made aware of the misinformation and posted about it.

The same is true for other sources and other pieces of information. Keep an eye out for inconsistencies, and if you’re in doubt, take a few different chunks of text from the supposed quote and search using Google. If Johns Hopkins, or whatever institution the information is originally from does not appear and you cannot find the information on their official pages, it probably did not come from them.

And remember, everyone makes mistakes. If you accidentally share incorrect information, forgive yourself, but make sure to remove it as quickly as possible and post a correction.

Educational Failures

Earlier in this post I said that anyone who has completed a high school course in biology should have realized that the post was in error. I stand by that statement. I am not being pompous here. There is a reason why these courses are taken. They are not simply a thing that we must do in order to get to the next stage of our life. People who think that the information covered in these courses will never have any real world application are ignoring situations like this one.

Originally published on the Spiritual Anthropologists publication on Medium.

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