Gargling warm salt water or vinegar prevents coronavirus infection, health experts say.
The post features a graphic image and texts that reads: “Corona virus before it reaches the lungs it remains in the throat for four days and at this time the person begins to cough and have throat pains. If he drinks water a lot and gargling with warm water & salt or vinegar eliminates the virus. Spread this information because you can save someone with this information.”, Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:, The same graphic can be found on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here\xa0alongside a similar claim., The claim is false; while gargling is a common treatment for a sore throat, there is no evidence to suggest that it would eliminate or prevent infection from COVID-19., The official recommendations of the World Health Organization\xa0(WHO), as well as those of the health authorities of the United States, Canada, UK and Australia, do not list gargling as an effective treatment for COVID-19., “While some western, traditional or home remedies may provide comfort and alleviate symptoms of COVID-19, there is no evidence that current medicine can prevent or cure the disease,” reads WHO’s website., There is also no evidence to support the claim that the coronavirus “remains in the throat for four days” before reaching the lungs., WHO states the COVID-19 incubation period, which is the time between catching the virus and showing symptoms of the disease, ranges from 1 to 14 days, but is most commonly around five days., Brandon Brown, a professor at the University of California Riverside’s Center for Healthy Communities, also told AFP by email\xa0that gargling with warm water is a common remedy for sore throat in general, not for the novel coronavirus in particular., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Gargling warm salt water or vinegar does not prevent coronavirus infection, health experts say | AFP Fact Check