Yahoo News Some People Seem to Think Coronavirus Is Related to Corona Beer — It's Not
Corona beer lovers have no fear, your favorite beverage is not to blame for the coronavirus.
As the rapidly spreading disease continues to impact millions, it seems that many people are beginning to wonder whether the virus has anything to do with the similar-sounding Corona beer.
Google Trends recently calculated that in the United States, there has been a sharp increase in people searching for “beer virus” or “corona beer virus,” over the last week, USA Today reported.
They also revealed that Global search interest for “coronavirus symptoms” spiked +1,050 percent this week, with other top searches including “how does coronavirus spread” and “where does coronavirus come from.”
It definitely does not come from Corona beer.
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Global search interest for “coronavirus symptoms” has spiked +1,050% this week. 😷 Here are the top searched questions in the past 24 hours.#coronavirus #GoogleTrends pic.twitter.com/bPVsL3hCYW
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) January 21, 2020
Initially, Chinese health officials believed that coronavirus was transmitted from animal to human, and identified a food market in Wuhan — a city in central China — with seafood and mammals as the likely source.
However, they’ve since determined that the disease can move from human to human, as people who had no contact with the market have also contracted the virus.
Coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV, is a blanket term for several respiratory illnesses that can range from the common cold to more severe viruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Symptoms typically include a fever, cough, trouble breathing, headache and sore throat — similar to the flu. For people who develop more severe cases, it can turn into pneumonia, kidney failure and death, according to the World Health Organization.
As of Wednesday, Chinese officials and the WHO have confirmed over 6,065 cases, and 132 deaths — up from 106 on Tuesday — according to The New York Times.
The virus has spread outside of China with around 76 cases reported across other countries, including five in the United States. There are also cases reported in Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam and Japan.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a press conference that the region’s government would stop issuing permits for individual travelers from the Chinese mainland and declared a state of emergency as a result of the virus, with almost 60 million people in Chinese cities on lockdown.
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The five confirmed cases in the U.S. are from patients in Maricopa County, Arizona; Los Angeles County, California; and Orange County, California (a man in his 50s); a man in his 30s in Everett, Washington; and a woman in her 60s in Chicago.
NBC News reported that all five patients were being held at hospitals in isolation.
The WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday that he plans to “reconvene the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the new #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) tomorrow [Thursday] to advise me on whether the current outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.”
