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  • Hello lovely people,

  • The novel coronavirus epidemic is a double outbreak: the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus

  • responsible for the disease covid-19, but also a pandemic of misinformation. In moments

  • of heightened tension, misinformation can sometimes be worse than a virus.

  • Panic induced rumours can result in a phenomenon known asthe worried well”, where people

  • who don’t have the virus read something silly online likeall people with an index

  • finger longer than their ring finger are carriers for coronavirus, everyone else is safe

  • Then overwhelm the health system which reduces its ability to care for those who genuinely

  • need treatment.

  • Misinformation can also have the opposite effect, meaning people who DO have the virus

  • think theyre totally safe because their Aunt Susan shared a Facebook post that says

  • if you were born on a Monday youre fine and don’t have to practice social distancing

  • because youre basically half mermaid anyway.

  • They then blithely skip around touching stuff with their infected hands and spreading the

  • virus everywhere before their actual symptoms kick in 2 to 10 days later because, wow, half

  • merpeople are not a thing.

  • Unfortunately whilst there is no known cure for Coronavirus a number of myths have been

  • spreading around and it’s those well be busting today! Some are useless but some

  • are downright dangerous!

  • If youre watching this video in the near-or-distant future when this wholeoh my god is this

  • the apocalypse?!’ thing has blown over then cheers to you! Also, really relieved you still

  • have the internet.

  • - because obviously that’s the real worry (!)

  • If youre new to this channel, hi, that’s sarcasm. Please subscribe. Not sarcasm. I’m

  • Jessica, a chronically ill person who makes educational yet sassy videos about life with

  • illness, disability andgayness.

  • Not that my life would be that different if I was straight. I must be in a parallel universe

  • somewhere...

  • Wow, I’m so gay I can’t even imagine being straight.

  • I thought it was important to make a video about the coronavirus, firstly because it’s

  • all that anyone can talk about at the moment so not talking about it seems strange-

  • - I had a really fun video that was meant to come out today but instead will be coming

  • out on Friday. Because we need entertainment in difficult times too.

  • And secondly, because, as someone who deals with being ill every single day, watching

  • healthy people panic about the possibility of being so is very trippy. You don’t seem

  • to be helping yourselves out either as there is a lot of passing misinformation around.

  • And thus, were going to break down the biggest myths currently floating around about

  • the virus whilst reminding you:

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Because sometimes you just need a very British person to tell you to CALM DOWN.

  • Also, I’m in theat riskcategory of people and even if the virus just gives

  • you some mild, flu-like symptoms, you passing it to me could actually kill me.

  • So don't do that. Thanks.

  • I’ve already had pneumonia. It sucked worse than anything. And I never, never, EVER, want

  • to have it ever again.

  • I’ll start with a massive disclaimer that I’m not a doctor, just an ill person who

  • spends a lot of time in her house researching things on the internet. My myth-busting information

  • has been gathered from medical professionals and briefings from the World Health Organisation

  • who you should listen to-

  • - Who actually do know more than your kooky Aunt Susan who shares Facebook posts about

  • gargling bleach.

  • Who knew (!)

  • Oh Susan...

  • Myth: Holding your breath without coughing means you don’t have the virus.

  • NO. No.

  • According to social media, if you take a deep breath, hold it for 10 second and don’t

  • cough then you have no fibrosis or infection in the lungs and thus don’t have the coronavirus

  • so youre free to go about your merry way.

  • HOWEVER, according to the American Lung Foundation, fibrosis or scarring of the lungs can occur

  • due to infections, medications, genetics or diseases but whilst being unable to hold your

  • breath for 10 seconds without coughing MAY occur when you have fibrosis, it is not a

  • key diagnostic tool.

  • Additionally, as we should all know by now, you don’t need to have lung fibrosis to

  • have coronavirus, you don’t even need any symptoms at all!

  • Sidenote: Don’t glare at people in public when they cough, okay? They may just have

  • an allergy, or asthma.

  • - You can glare at them if they don’t cover their mouth when they cough though, that’s

  • just not nice in any circumstance.

  • If you are having breathing difficulties you should seek urgent medical care but please

  • remember that just because you started coughing whilst holding your breath for 10 seconds,

  • that does not mean you definitely have the virus or that, even if you do, it will cause

  • irreversible damage like fibrosis.

  • Myth: coronavirus only affects older people

  • People of all ages can be infected by the new coronavirus. Older people and those of

  • all ages with pre-existing medical conditions, particularly those that have an impact on

  • their respiratory or immune functions do appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely

  • ill but young people can also become ill or carry the virus. So:

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Myth: antibiotics will protect against the virus

  • No. But at least youve moved on from gargling bleach.

  • Antibiotics do not work against viruses, only bacteria. Antibiotics should not be used as

  • a means of prevention or treatment in the case of coronavirus.

  • However if you are hospitalised you may receive antibiotics

  • due to a bacterial coinfection.

  • Myth: drinking water every 15 minutes flushes out the virus

  • There is currently a post going around Facebook which recommends drinking water every 15 minutes

  • to flush out any virus that might have entered the mouth. So it will go into your stomach.

  • And be killed by your natural acids.

  • Which is not a thing.

  • Also what, the people who are infected do not drink ever?

  • Professor Trudie Lang at University of Oxford says there isno biological mechanism

  • for washing a respiratory virus down into your stomach to kill it. They enter the body

  • when you breathe them in and, yes, some of them might go into your mouth but drinking

  • won’t prevent it from getting in through your noseor eyesor mouth even.

  • Still, staying hydrated is good for your immune system.

  • Myth: drinking hot tea kills the virus

  • So why are English people getting it?

  • There are a lot of differentheat kills the virusrecommendations: from taking

  • hot baths, to drinking hot water to blowing a hairdryer in your face. All falsely attributed

  • to Unicef.

  • Poor Unicef

  • Trying to heat your body or expose it to the sun-

  • - how are you going to expose your lungs to the sun?

  • Is completely ineffective as once the virus is in your body we don’t yet have a way

  • of killing it. Your body just has to fight it off.

  • According to current scientific research, the temperature needed to actively kill the

  • virus is around 60 degrees Celsius or 140 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s far hotter than

  • any bath you want to sit in. But if someone in your house might be infected you should

  • wash your bed linen and towels at 60 degrees.

  • But please don’t burn your skin.

  • Sadly, tea can’t do much since it doesn’t actually change your body temperature, which

  • remains stable unless youre ill.

  • - as someone who has an illness that means I cannot regulate my body temperature very

  • well and it thus doesn’t remain stable I would just like to say: you should be very

  • grateful for that!

  • Hand Dryers don’t actually kill the virus either, I’m afraid:

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Myth: the virus will go away when the weather gets warmer

  • Tell that to Kenya.

  • Whilst we already know that the flu virus doesn’t survive well outside the body during

  • the summer, we don’t yet really know how heat impacts the new coronavirus. Other than

  • it appears to spread happily in hot and humid conditions, just as it does in cold and dry

  • ones.

  • No, it won’t go away if it starts to snow.

  • But at least well be less likely to go to the pub so social isolation might actually

  • have a chance of working.

  • Dr Marc LIpsitch at the Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of

  • Public Health says that while we do expect to see some slowing in the contagiousness

  • of COVID-19 as the weather warms it is not likely to be significant enough to slow transmission

  • of the virus.

  • Again: the human body temperature remains around 36.5 degrees Celsius to 37 degrees

  • Celsius regardless of the external temperature or weather, which is not hot enough to defeat

  • the virus so...

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Yes I’m going to keep playing that.

  • Myth: spraying alcohol or chlorine over your body will cure you of the virus

  • - Ouch. That sounds painful. Don’t do that.

  • Spraying any kind of disinfectant over your skin will not kill viruses that have already

  • entered your body. However, it can be very harmful to your mucous membranes like your

  • eyes and mouth.

  • You CAN use them to disinfect surfaces around you however, which IS recommended to keep

  • the virus at bay.

  • Myth: eating garlic will prevent the infection

  • Tell that to Italy and China. Two countries that use a lot of garlic in their cuisines

  • and yet

  • It’s a virus, not a vampire.

  • The World Health Organisation says that while garlic is a healthy food with some antimicrobial

  • properties there is no evidence that it can protect people from the new coronavirus.

  • It will make you smell though.

  • And the South China Morning Post reported a story of a woman who needed hospital treatment

  • for a severely inflamed throat after consuming 1.5kg of raw garlic.

  • So garlic won’t protect you.

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Similarly:

  • Myth: vitamin C and other supplements can combat coronavirus

  • Whilst there is evidence that certain health supplements can help boost your immune system,

  • they cannot specifically fight off infections like the coronavirus or spur on a speedy recovery.

  • In fact, for most people, taking extra vitamin C does not even ward off the common cold,

  • though it may shorten the duration of a cold if you catch one

  • - and most people are able to obtain all of their necessary vitamins and minerals through

  • a healthy diet so please don’t be talked into spending lots of money you don’t need to.

  • Please eat fruit and vegetables if you can.

  • The saddest thing is that some people are profiting off this belief. A certain YouTuber

  • and influencer, who will remain nameless in order to stop trafficking attention to them,

  • has taken this opportunity to peddle a ‘miraclesupplement that is said towipe out

  • the new coronavirus. This supplement contains chlorine dioxide - a bleaching agent.

  • Please do not take any miracle cures suggested by the internet, youre smarter than that.

  • I’m going to throwdrinkable silverin here as well. The use of colloidal silver

  • was promoted on a US televangelist’s show. A guest claimed that the solution kills some

  • strains of coronavirus within 12 hours (but also admitted it hadn’t been tested on COVID-19).

  • Didn’t stop it immediately being put on sale on Facebook! Although, bless them, Facebook

  • does now put a warning up on their posts.

  • Unlike iron or zinc, silver is not a metal that has any function in the human body. Although

  • there are some occasional uses of silver in healthcare, for example in bandages applied

  • to wounds, but that doesn't mean it's effective to consume and it could cause some serious

  • side effects including kidney damage, seizures and argyria - a condition that makes your

  • skin turn blue.

  • Which is at least interesting.

  • Myth: if you have a runny nose, you probably just have a common cold.

  • The common cold and seasonal flu are viral infections that can have very similar, even

  • identical symptoms to COVID-19 including fever, cough and shortness of breath. Uncommon symptoms

  • include dizziness, nausea, vomiting and a runny nose. HOWEVER it’s important to bear

  • in mind that the virus presents differently in different people. This goes along with

  • the myth thatif you have the coronavirus, youll knowbecause, no, you won’t.

  • Early on, infected people may show no symptoms at all.

  • And just because you don’t have the same symptoms as someone else who had coronavirus

  • doesn’t mean you don’t have it. If you feel unwell for any reason, you should take

  • precautions to avoid infecting others. The symptoms of coronavirus are not specific and

  • something that feels mild to you can cause significant sickness in someone who is at

  • high risk for infections.

  • - hi. That’s me. And the elderly or ill people in your life.

  • Please don’t leave the house when you have all the symptoms of coronavirus JUST because

  • you have a runny nose. There is nothing that says you can’t have the virus AND a cold.

  • Or the virus AND hayfever.

  • Think. It. Through.

  • And wash your hands!

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • Myth: positivity will stop the infection.

  • Oh. Oh honey, no. Put it down. Step away. Get some help!

  • Myth: face masks can protect you from the virus

  • Yes, I made you watch all the way to this point before addressing the most obvious myth.

  • Standard surgical masks cannot protect you from the virus as they are not designed to

  • block out viral particles and do not lay flush to the face. BUT they can help prevent you

  • from spreading it around, should you be infected, by blocking respiratory droplets from your

  • mouth.

  • There ARE some respirator facemasks, ‘N95 respiratorsthat can greatly reduce the

  • spread of the virus to the wearer but training is required to fit them so no air can sneak

  • around the edges.

  • Also: please stop asking your dentist to borrow face masks. They actually need them for work

  • and they may only have a set amount. And if youre in England then that’s NHS money

  • youre trying toborrow’.

  • Also, also: panic buying and hoarding facemasks means that chronically ill people who rely

  • on them to leave the house cannot then have them. So please think through your actions

  • before stocking up unnecessarily.

  • Myth: youre less likely to get COVID-19 than the flu.

  • Meh. Not necessarily.

  • Live Science reports that to estimate how easily a virus spreads, scientists calculate

  • its "basic reproduction number," or R0 (or R-nought). R0 predicts the number of people

  • who can catch a given bug from a single infected person. Currently, the R0 for SARS-CoV-2,

  • the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, is estimated at about 2.2, meaning a single

  • infected person will infect about 2.2 others, on average. By comparison, the flu has an

  • R0 of 1.3.

  • Most importantly, while no vaccine yet exists to prevent COVID-19, the seasonal flu vaccine

  • prevents influenza relatively well. Think about all those people who get it and don’t die.

  • Because the flu is notworsethan COVID-19, it’s just more common. And it doesn’t

  • kill more people because percentages are a thing!

  • I know weve been a little heavy so far, because I really, really want to stress how

  • serious the virus is but I also don’t want to panic you so:

  • Myth: Getting COVID-19 is a death sentence

  • Around 80% of people who are infected with the coronavirus have mild cases of COVID-19,

  • according to a study by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. About

  • 13.8% report severe illness, meaning they have shortness of breath, or require supplemental

  • oxygen, and about 4.7% are critical, meaning they face respiratory failure, multi-organ

  • failure or septic shock.

  • HOWEVER, If youre not in the most at-risk categories, you DO have a duty of care to

  • those who are. So start social distancing and remember:

  • [PSA] The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning

  • your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection

  • that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose.

  • And finally, because this isn’t an excuse for blatant racism:

  • Myth: it’s unsafe to be around Chinese people, Chinese food or packages from China.

  • Throw anyone calling this theChinese Virusinto the blender of doom!

  • Simply having Chinese or Asian heritage does not make you more susceptible to having the

  • virus and CLEARLY does not mean you automatically have it. The virus is not tied to ethnicity,

  • despite the internet rumours that darker skin makes you immune:

  • - dear universe, please help Idris Elba recover well.

  • Chinese food will also not pass the virus on to you. If youre following that logic,

  • you should be avoiding Italian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish AND Persian restaurants.

  • Actually, to be fair, you SHOULD be avoiding all restaurants. It’s calledsocial distancing

  • AND IT’S GOING TO SAVE LIVES.

  • However, a lot of locally based Chinese restaurants and businesses are struggling right now so

  • if youre wondering what to eat tonight please consider a Chinese takeawayjust

  • ask that the delivery person leaves it at your front door.

  • When it comes to packages, according to the World Health Organisation, research has found

  • that coronaviruses don’t survive long on objects such as letters and packages. Although

  • it can stay on surfaces such as metal, glass or plastic for as long as nine days, the surfaces

  • present in packaging are not ideal for the virus to survive, rather, the coronavirus

  • is thought to be most commonly spread through respiratory droplets.

  • That's when you cough and spit on other people.

  • I hope youve found this video helpful, if so please share it with your friends and

  • family to bust some myths.

  • It’s important not to panic, but to prepare and educate yourself based on science

  • and research.

  • Thank you for watching, subscribe if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you in my next video.

  • [kiss]

  • And yes this is a nurse’s cape from World War II and I finally have an excuse to wear it!

Hello lovely people,

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