- After the outburst of coronavirus, a lot of myths have been going around the world with regard to covid 19.
- But there has been not much evidence about which is true and untrue.
- The top eight myths and why people believe it are interesting.
- The real facts are to be explored for a better understanding of these myths.
A recent article published in the Scientific American deals with the 8 myths that have been surrounding the covid 19 pandemic. Let us have look into it.
The Eight Myths are as follows
- The virus was engineered in a laboratory in China.
- Covid 19 is no worse than the flu.
- You don’t need to wear a mask.
- Wealthy elites are using the virus to profit from vaccines.
- Hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment.
- Increases in cases are the result of increased testing.
- Herd immunity will protect us if we let the virus spread through the population.
- A covid-19 vaccine will be unsafe.
The not so true story behind the myth
U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab, stating that “the Intelligence Community … concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.”
Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli—who studies bat coronaviruses and whose lab Trump and others have suggested was the source of COVID-19—compared the pathogen’s sequence with those of other coronaviruses her team had sampled from bat caves and found that it did not match any of them.
In response to calls for an independent, international investigation into how the virus originated, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission.
People believe the story behind this myth
People want a scapegoat for the immense suffering and economic fallout caused by COVID-19, and China—a foreign country and a competitor of the U.S.—is an easy target.
Accidental lab releases of pathogens do sometimes occur, and although many scientists say this possibility is unlikely, it provides just enough legitimacy to support a narrative in which China intentionally engineered the virus to unleash it on the world.
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Source: Scientific American