5 coronavirus face mask myths under the microscope

The 5 myths answered are, will my oxygen level drop, wearing a mask? Do I need a mask, If I am not unwell? A mask won't stop a wearer getting ill. You don't have to wear a mask if you have a medical condition and its enough to just wear a mask.

COVID-19 fact check: Caution urged on study about virus, smoking

More information is needed after a French study suggested nicotine might play a role in preventing some illness from the coronavirus. Nicotine is not thought to attack sars-cov-2 directly. It may, however,
play an indirect role that involves a cell-membrane protein called ace2,
to which the virus attaches itself in order to gain access to a cell.
Some researchers suspect that nicotine binds to ace2 as well, and that
this makes it harder for the virus to do so alongside it.

Researchers hypothesize that a highly contagious strain is spreading; other experts remain skeptical

A research paper from scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, not yet peer-reviewed, reports that one strain of the novel coronavirus has emerged in Europe and become dominant around the planet, leading the researchers to believe the virus has mutated to become more contagious The bold hypothesis, however, was immediately met with skepticism by many infectious-disease experts, and there is no scientific consensus that any of the innumerable mutations in the virus so far have changed the general contagiousness or lethality of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Coronavirus can survive prolonged exposure to high temperatures

In the experiment, scientists found that typically hot temperatures of 60°Celsius (140° Fahrenheit) used to disinfect research labs are ineffective against the coronavirus. Instead, the pathogen may only be killed in a maintained temperature of 92 °C for 15 minutes.The researchers concluded that using chemicals rather than heat to disinfect would be the best way to go.

Sunlight and humidity kill coronavirus the fastest: US scientists

It has long been known that ultraviolet light has a sterilising effect, because the radiation damages the virus's genetic material and its ability to replicate. But coronavirus has also proven lethal in warm-weather places such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, raising broader questions about the impact of environmental factors.Dr Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization told Al Jazeera "the evidence is not supporting [the sunlight] theory".

The Viral "Study" About Runners Spreading Coronavirus Is Not Actually a Study

A study by Belgian researchers, a computer simulation that tracks the "spread droplets" and "slipstream" of exhalations, coughs, and sneezes of people who are running, walking and cycling has gone viral. The study chose to bypass all standard science publishing protocols to publish research that has been overhyped and isn't well understood.

The coronavirus was not engineered in a lab. Here's how we know.

Scientist compared the genome of this coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, with seven other coronaviruses known to infect humans, SARS, MERS, and SARS-Cov-1 which can cause sever diseases, anlong with HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E, which typically just cause mild symptoms and wrote that their analysis show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct.