Scientists are scrambling to find treatments and vaccines for the virus, which causes the illness COVID-19, and health care professionals are working to stop the spread of misinformation.
It’s a tough battle. On social media, memes have become efficient vectors of bad advice, often with urgent instructions or dystopian graphics. One, misstating the benefits of gargling salty water, shows the virus as a cluster of green burrs infecting the throat of a glowing blue man.
One series of posts with bad advice — including claims that sunshine could kill the virus and that ice cream should be avoided — tacked on the name UNICEF.
“This is, of course, not true,” said Christopher Tidey, a spokesman for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund.
“Misinformation during times of a health crisis can result in people being left unprotected or more vulnerable to the virus,” he said. “It can also spread paranoia, fear and stigmatization, and have other consequences, like offering a false sense of protection.”