These coronavirus reports and letters are fake — but incite real panic in California
Hoax news articles and a fake letter have provoked fears over the spread of coronavirus in California.
Fake news articles circulating on Snapchat claimed that students at Grossmont Union High School, Mount Miguel High School and West Hills High School were being tested for the virus, according to NBC San Diego.
Some of the articles were created on a prank website called Channel22News.com. Another article had a fake headline and The San Diego Union-Tribune’s masthead.
“I was really scared because I didn’t want to get sick,” a student told NBC San Diego. “I was terrified of people touching me and sneezing around me ‘cause I didn’t want to get the virus.”
A Grossmont Union High School District spokesperson said the prank didn’t prevent anyone from attending school, NBC San Diego reported. The district is investigating the person behind the hoax articles and hasn’t stated what the punishment for the culprit would be.
The CDC confirmed that the case being tested in San Diego County was negative, according to NBC San Diego.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health said in a press release on Jan. 30 that a letter warning about an outbreak in Carson City was fake.
“There is no immediate threat to the general public, no special precautions are required and people should not be excluded from activities based on their race, country of origin, or recent travel if they do not have symptoms of respiratory illness,” the health department wrote.
There have been other fake reports of coronavirus in the Los Angeles area.
A Santa Clarita high school said that there wasn’t an outbreak in the city and the social media posts were false, CNN reported.
“Those are just rumors,” William S. Hart Union High School District said. “There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Santa Clarita. The sheriff’s department is investigating those who have posted otherwise on social media.”
There was another fake article stating that the virus had spread to Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Orange County, according to CNN. The school district denied the claim, saying the report was fake.
“We have no reported cases that link any of our students or school community to the coronavirus,” the district said in a statement.
At least 213 people have died from the virus in China and almost 9,800 have been infected worldwide, The New York Times reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ordered a mandatory quarantine for 195 people from Wuhan — the first in more than 50 years, according to the Los Angeles Times. They were evacuated to March Air Reserve Base, located in Riverside County, to escape the coronavirus outbreak. The people will be quarantined for 14 days, which is the incubation time for the virus.
The World Health Organization officially declared coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern” on Jan. 30.
There has been fear on college campuses in the U.S., and suspected cases at Baylor, Wesleyan and Tennessee Tech ended up negative, according to The New York Times.
The U.S. has six confirmed cases, 114 cases that tested negative and 121 that are pending, according to the CDC.
The first person-to-person transmitted case of coronavirus in the U.S. was confirmed on Jan. 30, according to NBC.
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 2:32 PM with the headline "These coronavirus reports and letters are fake — but incite real panic in California."