Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and other social media platforms are scrambling to eradicate coronavirus fake stories that are spreading like wildfire. Most of these tech giants have already hired global fact-checking organizations to weed out coronavirus misinformation that could aggravate the present situation than it already is.
To date, China's National Health Commission confirmed new 38 deaths and 1,737 new confirmed cases. These numbers placed the total deaths in the country to 170 and 7,711 confirmed cases.
There are also more than 100 people patients who were cured and discharged accordingly. This information means that as much as the virus is considered deadly and that precautions are in place, the situation remains to be managed appropriately much like with previous deadly outbreaks like SARS.
Of the most rampant hoax that people circulate online is that the Wuhan coronavirus is a covert biological weapons program that may have leaked from a discreet war laboratory in China. The most shared article on this is a purported interview with an ex-Israeli military intelligence revealing the so-called weapon-making process.
Of course, there is no truth to that or at least evidence to support the claim. In reality, there has been no confirmed source of the virus yet. What scientists had now is the conclusion that it spread from illegally traded wildlife that is rampant in Wuhan.
In similar narrative is a report where the Wuhan virus is associated with some suspended researchers at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory. The reports claimed these scientists breached some policies and sent some samples of the coronavirus in Wuhan in a purported career as spies for a purported government.
A similar tune is a claim that a group of experts has submitted a patent for a coronavirus vaccine as early as 2015. The theory goes on saying that the outbreak is planned for this group of experts to monetized their vaccines or for approval for the vaccine to come immediately. However, the published 2015 patent talked about an already identified coronavirus around that time and not the Wuhan coronavirus at present which was described by experts as "novel."
The strongest source of misinformation, however, is a video of a woman who is eating bat soup and the bat itself. In the video, the woman said it tastes like chicken. This viral video triggered against Chinese people. It resulted in racist sentiments and hateful feelings toward people in the Asian country.
The truth is that the video is not in Wuhan or any other place in China. It was filmed in 2016 and was filmed in Palau.
In a similar manner, a woman in another video presented herself as a nurse and said China is hiding the fact that 90,000 people are already affected by the virus. However, based on the English subtitles of the video, her claims about the virus revealed that she doesn't have the understanding of basic medical information.
The spread and the creation of content of coronavirus hoaxes are strongly rejected. People are encouraged to only get their information from major news outlets and organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization.
