TFC weekly monitoring report, May 29- Jun 4, 2023: Concerns over the pandemic drive the spread of misinformation

The Taiwan FactCheck Center releases a weekly report on the trends of misinformation from the previous week. Here are the highlights from the latest edition.

The rumors that gained traction in the past week mainly revolved around the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we observed that many recent rumors were past misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. 

One rumor falsely claimed that the virus would linger in the throat and suggested gargling with saltwater as a preventive measure, using the name of a physician from the renowned Tri-Service General Hospital. This rumor first appeared in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and resurfaced recently. Additionally, there was a resurgence of a false remedy claiming that consuming more bananas and drinking warm lemon water could prevent infection.