Confusion on the Relatedness of Coronavirus and Corona Beer

Recent google search trends illustrate how confused people can get when it comes to the newly identified, rapidly spreading disease. Frequent and ample searches like “corona beer virus” show the belief of a number of people that the emergence of coronavirus is related to Corona brand beer.

Most of such searches come from North America, western Europe, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and New Zealand. The Wuhan virus initiated a myriad of other false narratives.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities informed the world of a pneumonia-like virus originating in Wuhan. Since then, the number of confirmed cases has increased exponentially, and infections have been reported worldwide, all this despite China trying to stymie the crisis by putting millions of its citizens on lockdown along with other measures. Failure to stop the virus in China could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world.

The panic is escalating on a global scale as the death toll climbs to 132 persons and the number of confirmed cases tops 6056.

By Elene Dzebisashvili