Priyanka Chopra recently took to Instagram to stream a live conversation about coronavirus and put forward questions to World Health Organisation experts. She started by saying that a lot of misinformation has been circulating online and the purpose of the discussion is to pass on accurate information.
Around 45,000 fans took part in the discussion that busted common myths about the coronavirus, including it being airborne.
In a free-wheeling session with Chopra, who conducted the live from Los Angeles, threw a volley of questions such as ‘Is the coronavirus air-borne?’, ’Do we have a vaccine for coronavirus yet?’ and ‘how can governments help in mitigating the coronavirus spread’ to Dr Tedros and Maria Van Kerkhove from WHO.
Even Nick Jonas had a query about this pandemic that claimed thousands of lives across the globe. “How can someone who’s diabetic like me and asthmatic like her protect ourselves from the virus?”, he asked. Almost every question came round to the basics of sanitisation and hygiene and how washing hands thoroughly is key to preventing the virus from spreading.
Let’s take a look at some of the takeaways from the conversation:
COVID-19 is not airborne:
“The virus is not airborne. It spreads from the droplets of your nose and mouth. If you touch that and rub your eyes, nose or mouth, then you get the virus. Coronavirus is not spread through food. If you wash your hands throughly, even if you touch the droplets on surfaces, that can be mitigated.”
There’s still no vaccine for coronavirus:
“We started more than 8 weeks ago and we had 400 scientists participate and we are working on a few vaccine candidates. But vaccines will be ready only 12 to 18 months from now.”
We are still learning about the virus:
“We don’t have the full picture about the virus yet. We still don’t know if this virus can only spread in cold temperatures and whether there are chances of it disappearing when summer arrives. All we know is that we humans and our bodies behave differently during summer months. We are only 12 weeks into finding how this virus will behave and we are still putting the evidence together. We don’t have answers to those questions yet.”
Sneezing and runny nose are not the accurate symptoms of COVID-19
“It would be rare that you have contracted the coronavirus if you sneeze or have a runny nose. Ninety per cent of those affected in China were found to have fever and dry cough as distinguishing features.”
Apart from that the need to maintain physical distance was also stressed.
Priyanka also expressed her gratitude towards all the healthcare professionals and other people fighting actively against COVID-19.
“We are all in the same boat now. This is a weird leveller because coronavirus will not look at where you come from. It is going to affect each one of us in some way or the other … So let be socially responsible and not panic. Let’s also not hoard gloves that medical professionals need,” said Chopra.
Here are some of the other queries:
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