Will Sipping Water Every 15 Minutes Prevent a Coronavirus Infection?







This "serious excellent advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases" is not all that excellent. 







































							False
['Taking a few sips of water every 15 mins will prevent the new coronavirus from entering your windpipe and lungs.', 'Inaccurate messages about the new coronavirus are spreading and mutating online. One frequently copied and pasted bit of text that has gone viral on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp purports to impart “serious excellent advice” from “Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases.”', 'That “advice” asserts regular sips of water can prevent the coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, from entering the respiratory system:', 'SERIOUS EXCELLENT ADVICE by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases.\xa0 Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat is moist, never DRY. Take a few sips of water every 15 mins at least. WHY?\xa0 Even if the virus gets into your mouth … drinking water or other liquids will WASH them down through your oesophagus and into the stomach. Once there in tummy … your stomach ACID will kill all the virus. If you don’t drink enough water more regularly … the virus can enter your windpipes and into the LUNGS. That’s very dangerous.', 'The “serious excellent advice by Japanese doctors” text is often combined with other viral coronavirus claims including a paragraph about a “self-check” attributed to “Taiwan experts,” and a set of recommendations that begins with a claim about differentiating between a cold and COVID-19. Snopes addressed the “Taiwan experts self-check” claim here\xa0and addressed the list of tips that begins with a dubious method of distinguishing a cold from COVID-19 here. This article deals only with the claim regarding sipping water every 15 minutes.', 'It is true that COVID-19 infects the respiratory system by directly entering the body through the mouth or nose. This fact is central to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to wash hands frequently and avoid touching your face. The assertion in this viral “advice,” however, is that if the virus were already in your mouth, water would help wash it away. Though medical officials recommend drinking water during any infection, no evidence exists to support the notion that sipping water prevents a virus from infecting the respiratory system.', 'Drinking more water, while good for your overall health, will not keep anyone from catching the coronavirus, according to Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University. Schaffner told The Associated Press, “We always caution anyone healthy and people who are sick to keep up fluid intake and keep mucus membranes moist.” He also said: “It makes you feel better; there is no clear indication that it directly protects you against complications.”', 'Dr. Susan Wootton, an infectious disease expert at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, agreed with that assessment, telling KHOU that no data exist to support the claim that sipping water will prevent infection by transporting it to the stomach.', 'Because no evidence supports the claim, we rank the notion that sipping water regularly prevents COVID-19 infection as “False.”', 'Bollyy.com. \xa0 “Taiwan Experts Provide A Simple Self-Check That We Can Do Every Morning.”\n\xa0 \xa0 4 March 2020.', 'Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \xa0 “Basic Protective Measures Against the New Coronavirus.”\n\xa0 \xa0 Accessed 11 March 2020.', 'Dupuy, Beatrice. \xa0 “Drinking Water Won’t Prevent the Coronavirus.”\n\xa0 \xa0 The Associated Press. \xa0 28 February 2020.', 'Whitfield, Stephanie. \xa0 “VERIFY: Does Drinking Water Prevent the Spread of COVID-19?”\n\xa0 \xa0 KHOU.com. \xa0 10 March 2020.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', 'A complete story is rarely told in a headline.', 'Social media rumors that two memorials in New York were vandalized proved misleading.', 'In August 2019, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man died after an encounter with police officers in Aurora, Colorado.', 'A chaotic scene in St. Louis sparked outrage, memes, and confusion.', 'Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on sex abuse charges connected to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.', 'The white supremacist group made frequent use of the slogan more recently embraced by President Donald Trump, though they did not, as some claim, invent it.', "The question of past arrests often surfaces among people who want to rationalize police officers' actions when Black men are killed in custody.", 'You can claim anything if you remove the barrier of evidence.', 'Rumors about antifa plotting violence have coincided with the month of July and Gettysburg before.', '© 1995 - 2020 by Snopes Media Group Inc.', 'This material may not be reproduced without permission.', 'Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com']
Will Sipping Water Every 15 Minutes Prevent a Coronavirus Infection?