Fake news, conspiracy theories abound as novel coronavirus spreads
Posted January 28, 2020 5:53 am.
Last Updated February 10, 2020 7:19 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – From China stealing the novel coronavirus from Canada to people dying from infection, there’s no shortage of rumours when it comes to the recent outbreak.
But as Chinese officials report more than 100 deaths and at least 4,500 infections so far, B.C.’s chief medical health officer says she’s confident in the information coming out of that country, despite conspiray theories Beijing is trying to downplay the crisis.
“There has been a lot of concern that the [Chinese] government had been suppressing some information, and I did have that concern myself, but they have been much more forthcoming in the last few weeks,” Dr. Bonnie Henry says, adding she believes we can trust the information China is sharing with the World Health Organization. “So that to me is very reassuring.”
And in case you were wondering, no, China did not steal the new coronavirus from Winnipeg’s microbiology lab. That’s one major piece of misinformation hailing from a far-right blog called Zero Hedge that has previously been outed as a fake news website.
In B.C., Henry is completely shutting down a series of rumours. She says contrary to some online chatter, there haven’t been any deaths in the province. The province did announce on Tuesday that a case was confirmed in B.C.
Meanwhile, two cases have been confirmed in the Toronto area, and Henry says she’s in regular contact with her counterparts in Ontario, as well as in the City of Toronto.
While there are some cases under investigation, Henry says the B.C. government wont release numbers because they are changing day to day.
“It can vary some days even hourly,” she notes.
Related video: Answering your questions about the coronavirus
The current situation globally has revived memories of the SARS outbreak in 2002 that started in China and left close to 800 people dead.
The new coronavirus may have originated at a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan, but scientists are still working to trace its origins. SARS was traced back to civets, while MERS was traced to camels.
“I think it’s a challenge right now because it’s such a difficult thing, particularly in the most affected communities, and there’s a lot of people who are on social media, there’s a lot of families who are being dramatically affected by this,” Henry says. “I think there’s a lot out there, but I’m still confident that we are getting the best information from the authorities in China to help us deal with this.”
-With files from Marcella Bernardo and The Associated Press
Editor’s note: We have changed the headline to correctly refer to the new virus.
