Viral Chain Message Drinking Milk, Tea Or Inhaling Hot Steam Is Effective In Killing COVID-19, Really?

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JAKARTA - A viral video about COVID-19 has again hit the Chinese community, viral on social media. This video was also spread through the WhatsApp application chain message. In the video, it is stated that despite being attacked by this dangerous virus, no one died.

Medicines such as diligently drinking hot water 6 times a day, hot milk and hot tea 4 times a day to inhaling hot steam are said to be effective in warding off the viciousness of this virus.

"The video also states that if you are diligent in doing these habits, the Corona virus that is in the body will slowly die," the narration continued in the video as quoted by VOI from turnbackhoaks, Sunday, June 27.

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Is that right?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that there are no studies that have found that drinking hot beverages and inhaling hot steam can kill the coronavirus.

Furthermore, the results of research by a group of researchers from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, United States stated that even though high temperatures can weaken Corona virus particles that are on the surface of an object.

"This method cannot provide effective results when the Corona virus has entered the human body," wrote turnbackhoaks.

A similar video was also circulated in November 2020. An article with this topic has been published on the turnbackhoax.id site with the article title "[FALSE] Drinking Hot Water, Hot Milk, Hot Tea and Inhaling the Steam Can Kill the Corona Virus" which was uploaded on November 27, 2020.

"Thus, the video circulating through chain messages on WhatsApp can be categorized as misleading content.

"WHO states that there are no studies that have found that drinking hot beverages and inhaling hot steam can kill the Corona virus," wrote turnbackhoaks.

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The bbc.com site for example writes, it is true that hot drinks are a powerful drug to calm the mind when the weather is cold. But one thing hot drinks can't do is protect you from COVID-19.

There have been many claims to the contrary circulating widely on social media and on private messaging apps – one of the many fake health advice being shared. One claim that hot water would be enough to protect people from the virus even led Unicef to issue a statement saying it didn't come from them.

"There is no evidence that hot drinks will protect against viral infections," said Ron Eccles, an expert on respiratory diseases at Cardiff University in the UK and former director of the Common Cold Centre.

Eccles has done research in the past on the apparent effects of drinking hot liquids when suffering from colds and flu.

He found that while hot drinks may relieve cold symptoms, it's likely due in part to their effect on increasing the secretion of saliva and mucus in the mouth and nose, which relieves inflammation.

But he also concluded that there was likely a strong placebo effect involved as well. Hot drinks however do not get rid of the virus that caused the infection in the first place.

"In the case of Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, BBC Future has investigated how drinking water does not provide any protection against the new coronavirus. The virus cannot simply be washed away by drinking water or gargling regularly."