The World Health Organization (WHO) has been clear that to date, no specific cure has been found for the coronavirus.
Despite this fact, a number of at-home remedies and solutions have been circulating online. One of these, a TikTok claiming to “kill the coronavirus before it even gets to your lungs,” has been spreading like the highly contagious virus it claims to prevent.
This DIY cure began on Facebook.
The earliest post regarding the treatment that India Today could track down came from Facebook user Linwood Waller. It has already been flagged by Facebook’s independent fact-checkers as containing “partly false information.” The post claims that inhaling the steam of water mixed with sea salt and orange peels will serve as a coronavirus remedy.
The simple holistic remedy spread quickly online. Several other posts soon appeared on Facebook, boosting the same coronavirus cure.
Once it made its way to TikTok, the DIY cure’s reach got a massive boost. After user Jay Pitts created a video explainer for the method, it was suddenly everywhere.
Pitts’ explainer is good, the issue is any claim that it can prevent or cure COVID-19. My mother used to use this solution when I got sick, in fact. She would place me under a blanket or sheet with a pot of recently boiled water and have me breathe deeply for several long minutes before removing the blanket. It’s soothing to your sore throat and, as Pitts noted, really can alleviate other symptoms.
But it is not, in any way, a cure.
Not for the common cold, not for the flu, and absolutely not for COVID-19. Despite this fact, the solution has continued to make the rounds online, convincing more and more people that a holistic method can work.
Using the same audio from Pitts’ original video, the simple remedy has been cropping up all over TikTok.
Some of the homemade remedies for the coronavirus even have the potential to be dangerous in their own right. (Please, people, don’t douse your bodies in alcohol, it won’t prevent the virus.)
As the WHO points out on its website, “to date, there is no specific medicine recommended to prevent or treat the new coronavirus.”
This TikTok solution will very likely ease the symptoms of a cold or severe allergies, however. If you’re experiencing a sore throat, cough, or are blocked-up from mucus, breathing in some steam will almost certainly help.
Just don’t boost it as a coronavirus cure.
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H/T India Today