The elixir which took lives
Around 27th March, a half informative-fully fake news started getting circulated on local social networks of Iran. The News claimed that alcohol could prevent a person from COVID-19. Now, for a country where alcohol is banned for most of its population, it’s very dangerous if that news is not correctly comprehended by the public. The same thing happened and industrial alcohol(methanol) was consumed instead of conventional liquor(ethanol). Methanol is a very dangerous substance and this incident rendered a death toll of 300 with more than 1000 sickened by the consumption. Out of those sickened, many must have gone blind because of the toxic effects of methanol, however that information is still ambiguous by the Iranian government side. Associate Press gave even higher number of death told for the same (480) on the account of a source from the Health Ministry of Iran.
Amidst the universal human nature of contentment while being part of a socially benefiting activity, fake news spreaders often forget that what they forward, with a complete goodwill, might make them happy but the unverified information making its way to the real world and inculcating kinetic damage to something as grave as human lives is the exact opposite of what their original intention towards the society might be in first place. It is the need of the hour to increase common sense and scientific temperament of this country so that unverified information doesn’t get to travel miles on an electronic path through a self-serving grey conscience of the human animal.
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