Are COVID-19 Tracing Apps Secretly Tracking Your Facebook and Phone Contacts?
Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In early 2020, a number of smartphone applications (apps) were tested and launched across North America to help regions identify which users have been infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, who they came into contact with, and transmission zones.  These apps are attempting to help make contact tracing easier, a form of disease control that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls a key strategy for preventing further spread of the disease. The process involves public health staff who work with COVID-19 patients to help them recall everyone they came into contact with during the time they may have been infectious. Staff then warn exposed individuals in a rapid and sensitive manner (while protecting the identity of the patient) and provide support and information on how to mitigate the spread.  calls In May 2020, a number of Facebook posts claimed that mobile apps that are using contact tracing to research COVID-19 transmission patterns are also taking information from the user's device to "identify, track or locate" various contacts on their phones or their Facebook friends lists. Most posts refer to one of two such apps: Healthy Together or ABTraceTogether. The posts say:     These posts greatly exaggerate the extent to which apps have access to contact lists and particularly to Facebook accounts.  Healthy Together, built by Twenty Holdings, Inc., was rolled out by the state of Utah in April and May 2020, as part of an effort to help public health officials trace contacts of those infected with the disease, and to allow Utahns to track their symptoms and find the nearest testing center. The app uses GPS, location data, and Bluetooth technology to identify potential contacts. rolled out Bluetooth technology allows health officials to gather data by connecting devices to each other, while GPS data allows them to track a person's movements and their location to within 5 to 10 feet. Thus, Bluetooth determines potential person-to-person transmission of the disease while GPS tracking figures out potential transmission zones and how contagious diseases can move through populations and regions.  allows The Utah government is encouraging more people to download this application. As of May 13, more than 45,000 people had done so, at least 2% of the states population, according to CNBC. CNBC The app is opt-in and voluntary and allows users to control what data they release. They own their personal data and can delete it at any time. Location data is automatically deleted after 30 days, symptom data becomes anonymous after 30 days, and users can identify what data they would like to share, which includes Bluetooth data, location data, or contact lists. The app The FAQ on the Utah governments coronavirus resources website suggest that officials are taking precautions around user privacy as well: FAQ Will anyone have access to personally identifiable information?Public health officials and a limited number of development employees with Twenty Holdings, Inc. will have access to your name, phone number, and location data for COVID-19 tracing purposes only. What collective data would the Utah government like to share publicly in the weeks following the launch?The State of Utah values the role of limited government and recognizes that asking you to provide personal information may be uncomfortable and concerning to some. However, you can be assured that your personal data will be used only for the purpose of fighting COVID-19. Utah will investigate GPS and location data to help understand transmission zones, with the goal of informing policy makers so they can make swift and smart decisions in the coming weeks or months. Healthy Together's privacy policy also states users may provide the following, among other details:  privacy policy We may receive: Registration and Profile Information. We may receive information from you when you register to use Healthy Together. That information may include, among other things, your full name, phone numbers, and device identifiers.Contact List. If you choose to share your mobile device contacts or address book with Healthy Together, we will store your contacts or address book information, including the phone numbers and names of your contacts, to enable you to invite your contacts to Healthy Together and help facilitate your user experience. Healthy Together responded to Snopes' questions about these rumors: Only if a user opts-in to share their phones contact list, can they then invite friends on their contact list to use the app. Sending this invitation will prompt their contact to join Healthy Together, but this invitation to join the app is also opt-in. Sending an invitation to a friend does not mean Healthy Together will track or automatically collect data. If someone chooses to download the app by accepting their friends invitation, they too have to opt-in to share any data permissions. The app is not connected to Facebook and Healthy Together users cannot invite their Facebook friends to use the app. Healthy Together is not tracing anyone who is not a user of the app, and is not tracing anyone who does not opt in to the Bluetooth or location data permissions. Healthy Together is completely opt-in, users own their data, and can delete it at any time. Thus the app's ability to access your contact list is in the user's control and is available only to invite friends to download the app. The app does not appear to have the ability to access your Facebook friends list. Furthermore, the app can only track and identify people who have downloaded it, so those people without the app cannot be tracked.  The app ABTraceTogether requires even less information from the user. The other app at the center of the Facebook/phone contacts rumor mill has been downloaded in the Canadian province of Alberta 100,000 times as of May 5. This voluntary app also does not connect to your phone contact list or Facebook friends list but collects only the following information: 100,000 following information During the app set up, the only personal data we collect is your mobile number, so Alberta Health Services can contact you quickly if you were in close proximity to a COVID-19 case. With your consent, the ABTraceTogether app exchanges Bluetooth proximity data with nearby phones running the same app. This data is anonymized and encrypted, and does not reveal your identity or the other persons identity. In order to measure distance, information about your phone model and the signal strength recorded is also shared, since different phone models transmit at a different power. This data is stored only on your phone, and is not shared with Alberta Health Services. Should Alberta Health Services need the data for contact tracing, they will ask you directly to share it with them and enable an upload of your contact tracing logs. Contact tracers, health officials who are trying to track down people exposed to the virus, may ask users about their locations in verbal interviews. The app's privacy policy states: Contact tracers privacy policy The information you provide will be collected by Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services for the purpose of conducting contact-tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic response to manage the public health emergency under the Public Health Act. [...] ABTraceTogether enables you to exchange non-identifying information with other users via Bluetooth; other users will not have access to any of your individually identifying information. If you receive a positive diagnosis for COVID-19, Alberta Health or Alberta Health Services will send you a code to enter into the Application. Your information will then be accessed and potentially disclosed by Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services to one another, for the purpose of facilitating contact-tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The privacy policy further points out that because tracers rely only on Bluetooth technology and not GPS, they do not collect data about users' locations; they only communicate with nearby phones through Bluetooth for a limited period.  Privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are critical of apps that ask for names and phone numbers of users, arguing that will erode trust and discourage people from signing on. They argue that developers need to be as transparent as possible to ensure their app is effective. Bennett Cyphers, a Staff Technologist with EFF spoke to Snopes, arguing that ultimately these apps should only get what is absolutely necessary from the user, with "as little private information [and] strict data minimization," something they don't agree apps like Healthy Together and ABTraceTogether are doing:  critical [The government] doesnt need [this information], they want it ... Apples and Googles proposals [have] ways to do it where the user's phone is able to give push notifications to the user through anonymized data. There are ways to do contact tracing that is privacy preserving, and that the government doesn't get data at all. The only difference between [the] decentralized contact tracing approach (which Apple and Google are proposing) and the centralized approach is that in the first model [when] someone who you've contacted is sick, [you will be notified] on your phone and it will tell you what to do and which public health officials to get in touch with. The other scenario is the government calls you themselves. The government prefers the latter because it gives them more control. We don't think there is a significant difference in the outcome [pertaining to health access] for users. ...All these apps are opting to share a record of who the people interacted with. That can reveal a lot about what you do, whether you engage in political activism, criminal activity, all kinds of things not related to COVID, and the government will have access [to it] ... We wouldn't be able to tell you what the government will do [with this] but what they could do ... [and] that's the problem. Jeff Jenkins, associate professor of Information Systems at the Brigham Young University, Marriott School of Business, said this about Healthy Together in a published news interview: "Jenkins said he feels like the app gives users a reasonable amount of control over their data, even if its not totally clear how the data will be used. 'With any app, there is a tradeoff between the intended benefit  in this case, combating COVID-19  and privacy.'" interview A range of contact-tracing apps were being tested and implemented in the spring of 2020. In May, Apple and Google released their own smartphone technology to automatically notify people if they have been exposed to someone with the virus. Unlike Healthy Together, their tech relies solely on Bluetooth technology to monitor person-to-person contact. Many of these apps are achieving mixed results, and the full implications of their impact on data privacy are being closely followed by groups like EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  released In sum, little evidence exists to indicate that apps like Healthy Together and ABTraceTogether are collecting others' information from users' phone or Facebook contacts, especially without consent. As their privacy policies outline, the information they gather is for specific health-related purposes, and all the information given is with the user's consent. Healthy Together can receive your contact list if you agree to it, while ABTraceTogether only asks for your phone number. Furthermore, users have to actually install the app for their interactions to be monitored, or their location to be tracked. Individuals without the app will not be tracked this way. As such, we rate this claim a "Mixture."  Update, Dec. 2, 2020: In July 2020, Utah's state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn announced that Healthy Together's major feature of using GPS and Bluetooth location tracking would be turned off, "Weve learned over the course of the last three months that location tracking isnt popular and as a result, it hasnt really been helpful to our contact tracing efforts." In November, the state's health leaders announced their intention to explore using Google and Apple technology to notify users if they had been exposed to the coronavirus. Healthy Together now serves as a symptom checker and a resource for people in the event that they get COVID-19. announced November ABTraceTogether has also face issues with its effectiveness. In November, the Alberta government revealed that its app had been used to trace only 20 cases over six months. The province also said that issues with the app could persist on devices made by Apple and the app needs further testing. Apple and Google's contact tracing software forms the backbone of the federal Canadian government's COVID Alert app, and is being used in all provinces except Alberta and British Columbia.  ABTraceTogether Alberta.ca. "ABTraceTogether FAQ." Coronavirus.utah.gov. "Healthy Together Beta App." Human Rights Watch."Mobile Location Data and Covid-19: Q&A."
 13 May 2020. Khalid, Amrita. "Utahs new Covid-19 contact tracing app will track user locations."
 Quartz. 23 April 2020. Leswing, Kif. "Utah has rejected the Apple-Google approach to tracing coronavirus, and is using an app made by a social media start-up instead.
 CNBC. 13 May 2020. Means, Sean P. and Alberty, Erin. "Utah launches an app to track people  and help trace their contacts if they get COVID-19."
 The Salt Lake Tribune.23 April 2020. Merkley, Lisi. "New app designed to track COVID-19 raises privacy concerns."
 The Daily Universe. 4 May 2020. O'Brien, Matt."Apple, Google release technology for pandemic apps."
 The Associated Press. 20 May 2020. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Contact Tracing : Part of a Multipronged Approach to Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic." Toy, Adam."Albertas contact-tracing app only works on iOS when phone is unlocked, app running in foreground."
 Global News. 4 May 2020. Weber, Jonathan and Dave, Paresh. "Factbox: The race to deploy COVID-19 contact tracing apps."
 Reuters. 14 May 2020.
On 24 September 2016, Washington State resident Arcan Cetin was arrested for the 23 September 2016 shooting at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Washington, in which five people were killed. Afterwards,Seattle-area radio station KVI reported that Cetin had registered and voted in Washington state despite his status as a non-citizen. KVI Election officials and Washington Secretary of State, Kim Wyman, have confirmed that suspected mass murderer at The Cascade Mall in Burlington, WA, Arcan Cetin, was illegally registered to vote in the state. Cetin is an immigrant from Turkey who has resident alien status  not a U.S. citizen. KVI's John Carlson interviewed Sec. Wyman about this revelation and tried to find answers about who has the authority under Washington law to find out if voters are illegally registered. The lack of hard answers adds serious questions to the validity of Washington elections as the November 8th, 2016 election approaches. Seattle's KING-TV provided a slightly more detailed version of the story: Federal sources confirm that Cetin was not a U.S. citizen, meaning legally he cannot vote. However, state records show Cetin registered to vote in 2014 and participated in three election cycles, including the May presidential primary. Cetin, who immigrated to the United States from Turkey as a child, is considered a permanent resident or green card holder. While a permanent resident can apply for U.S. citizenship after a certain period of time, sources tell KING his status had not changed from green card holder to U.S. citizen. While voters must attest to citizenship upon registering online or registering to vote at the Department of Licensing Office, Washington state doesn't require proof of citizenship. Therefore elections officials say the state's elections system operates, more or less, under an honor system. "We dont have a provision in state law that allows us either county elections officials or the Secretary of State's office to verify someones citizenship," explained Secretary of State Kim Wyman. "So, were in this place where we want to make sure were maintaining peoples confidence in the elections and the integrity of the process, but also that were giving this individual, like we would any voter, his due process. Were moving forward, and that investigation is really coming out of the investigation from the shootings." The penalty for voting as a non U.S. citizen could result in five years of prison time or a $10,000, according to Secretary of State's Office. However, shortly afterwards KING reported that Cetin was in fact a naturalized citizen: KING 5 [has] learned that Arcan Cetin, the 20-year-old who killed five people at Cascade Mall on Sept. 23, is in fact a U.S. citizen. For days after the shooting, Cetin was described by local and federal law enforcement as being a permanent U.S. resident. He immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey when he was a child, after his mother married an American citizen.  A federal official told KING that further investigation revealed that Cetin is a naturalized U.S. citizen. That means he was legally registered to vote. KING's initial story questioned state officials about how Cetin could register and vote without being a citizen. The topic of legal permanent residents gaining the right to vote has been debated in Seattle and was the subject of a ballot initiative in 2015: 2015 LPRs [lawful permanent residents] contribute to society exactly the way a citizen would, says Ruchika Tulshyan, whos originally from Singapore and moved to Seattle when Amazon hired her husband. We pay taxes, we follow the law, we are held to the exact same standards financially and in all fiduciary matters, but were not given the chance to vote. The 2015 ballot initiative was largely of interest to green card holders aware of their voting restrictions. But in 2010, the New York Times reported that it wasn't uncommon for legal permanent residents to vote and "unwittingly" break the law, believing that their exercising a common civic duty was neither illegal nor discouraged. One legal permanent resident facing deportation stated that he had unknowingly broken the law by registering to vote 18 years prior, eight years after immigrating to the United States: reported The way Joseph E. Joseph tells it, he was just doing his civic duty. On his way home from work one evening in 1992, he came across a group of volunteers in Brooklyn registering people to vote. Mr. Joseph, a legal permanent resident who had immigrated from St. Kitts eight years earlier, decided it was time to sign up. He cast a ballot in that years presidential election, he said, and in every one since. His participation in American democracy came at a steep cost: The government is now trying to deport him. In the United States, only citizens are allowed to vote in national and statewide elections. And while immigrants who are granted permanent residency  a green card  enjoy an array of privileges, including the right to work, they can lose them all and be expelled from the country if the authorities discover that they have even registered to vote. Uncovering an immigrants voting history is not always hard. Many proudly acknowledge having voted when applying for American citizenship. I thought that was expected of me, said Mr. Joseph, who volunteered the information on his citizenship application in 2008 and during his naturalization interview in 2009. I felt like I was part of the democracy. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) doesn't record instances of non-citizens voting, but the Times stated that "[m]any election law experts said there was no evidence that the violations happened frequently  or at least enough to skew election results." A New York metro-area legal aid group said that at least eight green card holders faced deportation for registering to vote in the years before the 2010 article was published, having inadvertently broken the law (and jeopardized their immigration status) in most instances. A lawyer and former immigration judge concurred, stating that most legal permanent resident voters were under the impression they were allowed and encouraged to vote. A USCIS spokesman confirmed that immigrants were not apprised of the restriction when granted their green cards, possibly adding to the confusion: It really annoys me that theyre just trying to do their civic duty for no pecuniary gain at all, yet they wind up in removal proceedings, said Jeffrey N. Brauwerman, a lawyer in Coral Gables, Fla., and a former immigration judge, who has represented four immigrants that the government tried to deport for registering to vote. William G. Wright, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency did not provide specific information on voting rights when granting green cards. But he pointed out that voter registration forms explain that an applicant must be an American citizen. Immigrants and their advocates, however, say there is widespread confusion, even among native-born Americans, about who is allowed to vote. Volunteers, whether working for political parties or nonpartisan causes, sometimes give incorrect advice when registering new voters. Confusing matters, permanent residents are permitted to vote in some municipalities, though not in New York City. And elections officials around the country do not customarily verify the citizenship of newly registered voters. Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship; Georgia passed a similar law, which has not taken effect. As the Times noted, both green card holders and registration volunteers are often befuddled by the intermittent ability of legal permanent residents to vote in some elections, exacerbated by a tacit assumption on the part of ineligible voters that their registrations would have been rejected by municipalities were they not permitted to participate. Complicating matters in Cetin's case was that he emigrated from Turkey as a small child and may not have been fully aware of the restrictions forbidding legal permanent residents from voting. emigrated However, Washington state voter registrations indicate that Cetin registered to vote on 27 September 2014 and subsequently participated in two elections:   Washington's Secretary of State confirmed that in addition to charges relating to the mall shooting, Arcan Cetin could face additional penalties for alleged illegal voting.  Allard, Jody et. al.  "Washington Mall Shooting Suspect Confesses to Killings."
  Washington Post.  26 September 2016. Semple, Kirk.  "For Some Immigrants, Voting Is a Criminal Act."
  The New York Times.  15 October 2010. Stuteville, Sarah.  "Local Voting Rights for Noncitizens? Advocates Say Time Has Come."
  The Seattle Times.  17 September 2015. KVI.  "Burlington WA Mall Accused Killer Was Illegally Registered to Vote."
  28 September 2016. KING-TV.  "Investigators May Probe Cascade Mall Suspect's Citizenship Status, Voting Record."
  28 September 2016. Claim:  A store in Colorado accepts food stamps towards the purchase of food items containing marijuana.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Is there a pot shop in Colorado that is taking food stamps for food items containing marijuana?   Origins:  On 3 January 2014, the National Report published an article positing that in Colorado (where marijuana use had just been legalized) a store had begun accepting food stamps towards the purchase of food items made with marijuana: article As of January 1st, 2014, Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow adults aged 21 or older to purchase and use marijuana for recreational use. The decision has led to excessively large lines at pot shops across the state and store owners reportedly surpassed $1 million in sales statewide on just the first day according to Denver's 9News. In all, 136 licenses have been approved by the state of Colorado for retail operations for the purposes of selling marijuana.  A majority of those licenses were issued tobusinesses in Denver with just eighteen city stores completing the process in time for opening day. One of those shops, Rite Greens, located on E. Colfax Ave in Denver, has taken the steps needed to accept food stamps (now called EBT cards) for the purposes of purchasing marijuana, effectively leading to taxpayer funded marijuana for welfare recipients.  Electronic Benefit Transfer cards  part of the Department of Agricultures Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  are typically of two general categories:  food and cash benefits.  [Store owner] JC Franco was able to take advantage of a loophole in the SNAP program as his shop sells a wide array of "edible" marijuana ranging from cookies and brownies to barbeque sauce and homemade butter. By the end of the day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered it mistaking it for a genuine news item.  However, the article was just a bit of political humor from the National Report spoofing the controversy over legalized recreational marijuana use and stereotypes about recipients of government assistance.   The National Report is a satirical web site that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." The National Report's  (since removed) disclaimer page states that: disclaimer National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways.  All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news.  Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. (NOTE: A good deal of misunderstanding about the use of EBT funds to purchase marijuana has led many readers to maintain that the article referenced above, though satirical in nature, is true in concept.  We address those misconceptions in a separate article.) misconceptions Last updated:  13 September 2014 Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As hospitals continued to be overwhelmed in 2020 by a surge in COVID-19 cases across the United States, false information surrounding the management of the disease and patients continued to circulate. overwhelmed One post in particular, shared on our Facebook group, Snopes Tips, claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement alleging that "anyone who walks into the hospital is counted as a Covid case, no matter why they come to the hospital, as the government pays the hospital extra money. post  There are two parts to this claim: Firstly, that hospitals are inflating their COVID-19 numbers, and secondly, that the government is allocating more funds based on coronavirus cases. Snopes covered the second part of the claim back in April. We learned that it was possible that Medicare was paying hospital fees for some COVID-19 cases, but Medicare stated that it does not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and placed on ventilators. covered The CDC highlighted in a statement how the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), the Paycheck Protection Program, and Health Care Enhancement Act provided $175 billion in relief funds to hospitals and healthcare providers on the front lines of the coronavirus response: highlighted In the first round of the High Impact Allocation, $12 billion was distributed to nearly 400 hospitals who provided inpatient care for 100 or more COVID-19 patients through April 10, 2020. $2 billion of these payments was distributed to these hospitals based on their Medicare disproportionate share and uncompensated care payments. In the second round of funding, $10 billion will be distributed to hospitals having over 161 COVID-19 admissions between January 1 and June 10, 2020. For the first part of the claim, we looked through CDC statements and reports about people admitted to hospitals around the country and were unable to find a case where the CDC said that the hospital was inflating its COVID-19 case numbers in order to get more money. We reached out to the CDC, and the agency referred us to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), but did not confirm whether it had ever made such a statement about hospitals counting everyone who enters as a COVID-19 case. U.S. President Donald Trump promoted another version of this conspiracy theory at a rally in October, where he said hospitals were inflating the numbers of COVID-19 deaths, and was roundly debunked by news outlets and rejected in a statement by the American College of Emergency Physicians.  promoted debunked statement To imply that emergency physicians would inflate the number of deaths from this pandemic to gain financially is offensive, especially as many are actually under unprecedented financial strain as they continue to bear the brunt of COVID-19. These baseless claims not only do a disservice to our health care heroes but promulgate the dangerous wave of misinformation which continues to hinder our nations efforts to get the pandemic under control and allow our nation to return to normalcy. The dire situation in hospitals paints a very different picture, far-removed from claims that they are profiting financially from the pandemic. A New York Times report from Nov. 27, 2020, highlighted how surging coronavirus numbers were resulting in a crisis-level shortage of beds and staff around the country. In some cases, hospitals were facing shortages in protective equipment, forcing healthcare workers to buy their own. As of Dec. 3, 2020, hospitalizations from the virus topped 100,000  an all-time high since the pandemic began.  New York Times Dec. 3, 2020 An April Washington Post report described how hospitals were also suffering from financial losses on account of their deferring or cancelling non-urgent surgeries to free up bed space for the pandemic, cutting off income, and forcing them to lay off workers. At the time, relief packages for hospitals were widely described as insufficient. Washington Post financial losses insufficient Hospital-reported data on COVID-19 patients have addressed a range of issues around the country. A July 2020 ProPublica report detailed how the Trump administration had told hospitals to stop reporting data to the CDC and instead report it to HHS. The move resulted in widespread confusion. While the number of infected patients was soaring nationally, for a period of time it was unclear how many were being treated in hospitals for COVID-19. A few states like Idaho and South Carolina experienced temporary information blackouts, and the COVID Tracking Project reported issues with its figures. July 2020 A Nov. 29, 2020, investigation by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) magazine found the federal system for tracking COVID-19 patients was continuing to carry questionable data. HHS collected hospital patient data in two ways  through HHS Protect, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Their two sources of data on the usage of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds for COVID patients conflicted sharply in at least six states. HHS data also diverged sharply from state-supplied data, and showed that over the last two months, COVID-19 in-patient tally in 14 states was consistently lower than HHS Protects. investigation consistently In at least 27 states, the tally was alternating between being lower and higher than HHS. And recently, in 16 states, the tallies grew closer. The over-arching conclusion for this analysis was that hospitals are going to be over-stressed in the upcoming months, with inaccurate information systems in place. We have reached out to the HHS to learn more, and will update this post with more information. Additionally, if the language of the claim is taken at face value, CDC guidance for hospitals references providing necessary in-person clinical services for conditions other than COVID-19 in the safest way possible, minimizing disease transmission to patients [...]. This leads to the conclusion that the CDC itself is not stating that hospitals are classifying everyone who walks in as a COVID-19 case. guidance While it is true that the government did provide relief funds in various forms for COVID-19 cases to hospitals in need of aid, little evidence exists that numbers were being inflated by hospitals for this reason. We thus rate this claim as false. Claim:  Target is distributing free $500 vouchers or $1000 gift cards to users who click an online link.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2012] There is a Facebook post that states if you share a Target ad that says get a free $500 Target voucher, write the comment, "Thank you Target" and the click like you will get a voucher for that amount. Get Free $500 target voucher Now (97 Left)  text message received: "Your entry last month has WON! Go to https://targetcontest.com/ and enter code 4787 to claim your FREE $1000 Target Gift Card within 24 hours!"   Origins:  In mid-November 2012, a survey scam purporting to offer free $500 Target vouchers or $1000 gift cards to those who followed particular links then did as told once there spread via e-mail, Facebook, and text message. Those links led to web pages (which were not operated or sponsored by Target) that asked the unwary to click what appeared to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which was really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who followed such instructions were then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" gift card offer stated that by accepting its terms, the user agreed to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies. Other recent survey scams of similar construction include:  $500 or $1,000 Target gift cards [November 2012] Target  $100 or $1,000 Walmart gift cards [March 2012] Walmart  $50 or $100 Starbucks gift cards [October 2011] Starbucks  $25 Tim Hortons gift cards [October 2011] Tim Hortons  Apple iPods, iPhones, or MacBooks in memory of Steve Jobs [October 2011] Apple Last updated:  24 November 2012    CBS 4 [Denver].  "Walmart Gift Card Text Hits Phones Across Denver Metro Area."   7 March 2012. As the premiere of the horror flick Jeepers Creepers 3 approached in September 2017, many posted messages on social media to remind potential moviegoers about director Victor Salva's criminal history: messages   Salva was convicted in 1988 on charges related to the sexual molestation of 12-year-old actor Nathan Forrest Winters during the filming of his movie Clownhouse. Salva served 15 months in prison and finished his parole in 1992. The Associated Press reported at the time: served Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in "Clownhouse," a low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns. Salva, sentenced to three years in state prison, served 15 months and completed parole in 1992. Salva is a registered sex offender: registered offender   said Victor Salva, a former child-care worker who impressed Hollywood filmmakers with his early cinematic work, was sentenced to three years in state prison in 1988 for molesting a 12-year-old boy who had acted in two of his films. Salva videotaped one of the encounters. [...] The revelations came as the now 20-year-old victim, Nathan Winters of Concord, Calif., picketed a screening of "Powder" on Monday night in Westwood. Winters passed out leaflets urging the public to boycott the movie and said his family and friends would continue protesting after the film debuts Friday on more than 1,500 screens nationwide. Winters said he was "in awe" that Disney would even make a movie with Salva. "I can't believe [Salva] is allowed to work with children again," Winters said. "He should not be allowed around children ever again." At the time, Salva released a statement saying "How deeply I regret my actions." It continued:  statement I paid for my mistakes dearly. Now, nearly 10 years later, I am excited about my work as a film maker and look forward to continuing to make a positive contribution to our society. Caravan Pictures, the company that made Powder for Disney, also released a statement: "He paid for his crime, he paid his debt to society," said Roger Birnbaum, whose Caravan Pictures made "Powder" for Disney and reportedly didn't know of Salva's record until the film was midway through production. "What happened eight years ago has nothing to do with this movie." More recently, Salva's past hindered the casting of Jeepers Creepers 3 when the web site Breakdown Services removed the casting call for a 13-year-old character (to be played by an 18-year-old) upon learning of Salva's crime.  casting Winters never starred in another movie.  movie Welkos, Robert.  "Disney Movie's Director a Convicted Child Molester."
 LA Times.   25 October 1995. Guthmann, Edward.  "Concord Molest Victim Confronts `Powder' Director / Actor protests at Disney Screening."
 SF Gate.   25 October 1995. Goldstein, Patrick.  "Victor Salva's Horror Stories."
 LA Times.   11 June 2006. Despite what scammers would like to have you think, "Fixer Upper" star andNew York Times bestselling author Joanna Gaines never endorsed an "intermittent keto routine," keto gummies, or any kind of "bedtime routine" involving weight loss gummies, pills, or supplements. Her husband, Chip, also had nothing to do with any of these products. In May 2023, paid ads circulated on Facebook and Instagram that showed pictures of Gaines. Those ads led to a fake CNN article that showed a picture of the married couple. That "article" was never hosted on cnn.com. The headline of the scammy and fictional article read, "How Millions Of Women Are Melting Body Fat & Getting Ripped Thanks To Joanna Gaines And Her Intermittent Keto Routine!" According to the article, Gaines spoke about weight loss and keto gummies on a "recent segment" of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." However, in reality, Gaines never said anything about these subjects on DeGeneres' show, which ended in 2022. Gaines The article also falsely claimed that Kelly Osbourne, Rachael Ray, and Wendy Lopez all took the alleged "amazing miracle pill" pushed by Gaines. Osbourne and Ray have been targets of similar scams in the past, including one that featured afake People article about Rebel Wilson. fake People article about Rebel Wilson Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon best known as "Dr. Oz," was also named on the order pages for these scammy products. Such pages falsely claimed he said of apple cider vinegar (ACV) keto gummies, "it works," and that they were the "holy grail of weight loss." However, like Gaines and others, he had nothing to do with the products. We advise readers to stay away from strange medicinal products that are referred to as weight loss "miracles." If an online offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Scam offers for weight loss keto gummies often enroll customers in monthly subscription charges, a stipulation that can only be found in the fine print of a page where people input their personal information. We recommend readers who have been the victims of these scams call their credit card company to ensure they don't receive future charges. For more information on the inner workings of these weight loss keto gummies scams, we recommend our past stories on the subject. our past stories As we previously reported, this was in no way the first time that Gaines' image and likeness was used without permission to promote these sorts of products  and it likely won't be the last. reported As wildfires raged across Australia at the start of 2020, an interesting claim about wombats, a short-legged marsupial, started to circulate on social media. According to this rumor, wombats were braving the fires to find lost animals and then leading them back to their burrows for safety: rumor   Reports from Australia that countless small animals have escaped death because wombats, unusually, opted to share their massive, complex burrows. Even reports that they have been observed exhibiting "sheperding behavior." While this social media post claims that it is based on "reports from Australia," we have seen no documentation of these supposed hero wombats. In fact, a number of Australian experts have said that they were skeptical of the claims. Jackie French, author and director of The Wombat Foundation, told IFLScience: IFLScience "Wombats are extremely short-sighted. They focus mostly on food and dirt. It would be hard for them to see well enough to shepherd, nor have I seen one do so." Scott Carver, a senior lecturer in wildlife ecology at the University of Tasmania, told the Associated Press no evidence exists that wombats were "sharing or encouraging other animals" to take refuge in their burrows. Associated Press While wombats may not actively be seeking out animals in need, it is quite possible that distressed creatures have found their way into wombat burrows on their own. Wombats are efficient diggers and can create burrows stretching up to 650 feet. Associate Professor Steve Johnston from the University of Queensland also noted that wombats may abandon these underground tunnels in order to dig a new one. This leaves some opportunities for other animals to seek shelter. 650 feet Johnston told the Brisbane Times: Brisbane Times "A lot of those wombat burrows could be empty, so animals could easily make their way into those burrows to escape the fire ... Wombats will often make a burrow system and then move on, so those empty burrows become open [to other animals]." Wombats are typically very territorial and will even charge and chase out animals that invade their space. However, students at the University of Melbourne set up cameras near one wombat burrow in 2019 and found other animals, including koalas and bunnies, venturing inside these underground tunnels. Kath Handasyde, an expert in native mammal ecology and physiology, said that the wombat was likely sleeping or in another chamber when these other animals explored the burrow. Here's a video where she explains the situation. video In short, wombats are not actively shepherding animals into their burrows for safety. However, it is certainly possible that animals fleeing the fires have taken refuge in the wombats' underground tunnels. In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity shared a video taken during the Australian fires in 2020 showing how one animal, the common brown butterfly, was using wombat holes to survive the flames:   Greenpeace Australia, the social media account that posted the viral message recounted in this story's introduction, later updated its Instagram post to remove the "shepherding" part of the claim: Instagram   Dupuy, Beatrice.  "Wombats Not Herding Animals Into Their Burrows During Australia Fires."
  Associated Press.  14 January 2020. Bradford, Alina.  "Facts About Wombats."
  Live Science.  30 October 2015. Layt, Stuart.  "Experts Question Reports of Wombats' Heroic Bushfire Efforts."   Brisbane Times.  13 January 2020. Nimmo, Dale.  "Viral Stories of Wombats Sheltering Other Wildlife From the Bushfires Aren't Entirely True."
  ABC News Australia.  15 January 2020. Hooper, Claudia.  "A Wombat, a Koala and a Rabbit in a Burrow."
  University of Melbourne.  15 April 2019. IFL Science.  "Viral Posts Claim Wombats Share Their Burrows During Australian Fires."   Retrieved 16 January 2020. In 2021, social media users began circulating photographs purporting to show "electric powered cars in boneyard" near Paris, France, that supposedly housed hundreds of derelict electric vehicles, the automobiles supposedly having been abandoned and left to decay because their battery storage cells had "given out" and were too expensive to replace:   Although the photographs are real; the accompanying description is misleading in multiple ways. This item is, in effect, an example of a failed business model rather than a failed technology. Back in 2011, the Autolib program offered the service of providing thousands of electric vehicles in the Paris area under a car-sharing program. Subscribes to the service were able to use the any of the fleet of 4,000 BlueCar cars as they wished, paying a fee each time depending upon how long they used the vehicle. At its peak in 2016, the program boasted 110,000 subscribers. However, Autolib slid from that peak into decline, due to a number of factors: Four thousand cars for over 100,000 subscribers meant many users were unable to find vehicles when they wanted them; users frequently left the cars dirty inside and damaged; and competition from ride-hailing apps such Uber eroded the customer base. By 2018, Autolib was running debts of tens of millions of euros and the program was discontinued in June of that year. running debts of tens of millions of euros program was discontinued in June In the end, most of the BlueCars in better condition were purchased and re-sold to new users or scrapped for parts. But a private company eventually stored some of the cars in not-so-good condition in a lot in an industrial area near Romorantin in Loir-et-Cher, as seen above -- not because the vehicles' storage cells had failed, but because the Autolib car-sharing program proved not to be a viable long-term business model. purchased and re-sold to new users or scrapped for parts It is also not the case that the abandoned Autolib BlueCars' batteries are "draining toxins into the ground." As noted in reports on the subject, the batteries have been removed from the pictured vehicles: reports Despite protests from the Bollor group, the multinational had to evacuate the 4,000 unwanted autolibs from the Paris region and urgently store them. They were then sold in several batches and two companies now hold most of the remaining fleet: the Breton company Autopuzz, former subcontractor of Bollor, which resells these vehicles throughout France, and the company Atis Production, whose manager Paul Aouizerate does not want to reveal his plans for the Autolib parked in Loir-et-Cher. The businessman also regrets the publication of photos of his vehicles in early March, shared by a blogger passionate about electric cars, who was amazed at such a landscape. The images became widespread on Facebook and Twitter, with internet users questioning how these cars can be reused and wondering about the potential risk of soil pollution they pose. Our vehicles are properly stored. The firefighters are aware that the construction site is well organized. All batteries have been removed, [and] the connections are isolated [said Paul Aouizerate, Atis Production Manager]. On 1 October 2017, pseudoscientific alternative health website NaturalNews.com, which is geared primarily toward supplement enthusiasts with a discerning taste for deep state conspiracy theories, posted an article ("Dont Look Now, But Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012") that attempts to cast doubt on the scientific veracity of global warming by first presenting the following grotesque caricature of a straw man argument: article straw man One of the most popular pieces of "evidence" that climate alarmists just love to bring up to prove the global warming narrative is the "all the ice is melting in the Arctic and the polar bears are dying" line. Weve all seen the documentaries where a polar bear is desperately clinging to a tiny piece of ice and you just know hes going to die soon. They article then presents two observations that make the generally factual point that there has been relatively more sea ice in the Arctic and glacial ice on Greenland in 2017 than there have been at specific times in the recent past: The latest figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, located at the University of Colorado, show that sea ice extent has increased by 40 percent since 2012. [...] [The Danish Polar Portal reports that]: If we rank the annual surface mass balance since 1981 from low to high, the lowest on record was 2011-2012 (38 Gt) and this year is the 5th highest out of the 37 year record. Danish Polar Portal To be clear, the primary data scientists use to document global warming are records of Earth's temperature over time, not doomed polar bear imagery. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist for the independent, nongovernmental Berkeley Earth research group told us in an e-mail that, in this area, pretty much "all groups who provide estimates" of global temperature unequivocally point to nearly uninterrupted temperature rises since the 1970s, as shown in this comparison of various estimates produced by the climate and energy policy website Carbon Brief: Zeke Hausfather produced   "People interested in global warming are best-served looking at actual global temperatures," Hausfather said. While this temperature trend is uncontroversial and clear, the climate system as a whole is a complex beast with numerous entangled parts. The basic approach to writing a blog post that "debunks" the concept of global warming is to highlight without explanation various parts of that system at a single point in time. NaturalNews.com is no exception to that basic strategy here. Arctic Sea Ice Natural News cites a climate change denial blog called ClimateDepot.com as evidence of the claim that sea ice has grown 40 percent since 2012. In reality, the claim made by this website was more specific and less useful. In a post dated 18 September 2017, Climate Depot stated: stated Arctic sea ice extent is up 40% from this date five years ago. "Sea ice extent" is one of many different metrics used to characterize the presence of sea ice, and is generally defined as "the area of ocean [based on pixels in satellite imagery] where at least 15 percent of the surface is frozen". On the day of 17 September 2017, sea ice extent was indeed higher than it was on 17 September 2012: defined   This does not mean, however, that sea ice has grown almost 40 percent since 2012, nor does it mean that the overall trend in arctic sea ice is toward growth  it hasn't and it isn't. The issue here is that sea ice extent is quite variable from year to year, and thus looking at two discrete points is a fairly useless exercise without the full context. "We don't expect it to monotonically decrease every year," Hausfather told us.  This chart (using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center) shows September sea ice extent compared against the same average used in the maps cited by Climate Depot, showing both this aforementioned variability but also an overall trend of reduced ice extent. Note that the year 2012 was no random year to select for comparison; it is actually the record lowest year in terms of Arctic sea ice extent  making anything compared to it necessarily higher: from   The overall trend of declining sea ice is even clearer when you look at a different measure: sea ice volume (presented by the Polar Science Center, below). Not only do such records show a clear negative trend, they also show just how anomalous 2012 was as a data point: Polar Science Center   In reality, 2017 was the eighth lowest year on record for Arctic sea ice extent since satellite measurements began in 1978. But in no world but the pseudo-scientific fringe internet would the concept of global warming rely on every single year breaking the previous year's record for sea ice minimum. eighth Tom Karl, the former director of NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information, told us that 2017's sea ice extent was still much lower than the 1980-2010 average (by two standard deviations), and that, despite claims to the contrary, "one can't look at a trend over 5 years and say much about the impact of global warming as other factors are also important on these short time scales." director Glacial Ice on Greenland The NaturalNews.com approach for glacial ice on Greenland was similarly lacking scale and context. The main source for these arguments was a completely legitimate end-of-year report put out by the Danish Polar Portal, a website run by the Danish Meteorological Institute. In that report, the organization makes this factual statement: report Heavy snow and rain in winter with a relatively short and intermittent summer melt season have left the Greenland ice sheet with more ice than has been usual over the last twenty years  in fact we have to go back to the 1980s and 90s to see a year similar to this one in terms of snow fall and ice melt. This statement, and the figures presented by NaturalNews.com, are referring to a metric known as Surface Mass Balance (SMB), which Polar Portal describes: describes Each year glaciers gain ice from snow and freezing rain and lose ice by melt that runs off. Adding these together gives the surface mass budget (SMB) in Greenland, the ice sheet typically gains mass from around September to May and loses more mass than it gains in the ablation [melting] season of June, July and August. Importantly, however, this measurement only presents half the picture in terms of how much mass is being lost from year to year from Greenland's glaciers. That's because it does not include the rather significant portion of ice that breaks  or calves  off into the ocean to melt elsewhere. On average this accounts for about 500 Gt [gigatons] of further ice loss. This, as stated in the Polar Portal post, nearly matches the estimated gain in SMB reported by Natural News, effectively canceling it out. In a post on Carbon Brief, analysts with the Danish Meteorological Society put this years measurement in context: post While the Greenland ice sheet has seen a neutral, or small positive, change in ice for this year, it should be noted that Greenland has lost approximately 3,600bn tonnes of ice since 2002. Like the record of Arctic sea ice earlier, when put in the context of the entire trend of Greenland's ice mass over time (presented by Polar Portal below), 2017's measurement does nothing to change larger and completely unambiguous trends of overall melting: Polar Portal    Further, in the case of Greenland's ice sheet, there is not much of a mystery surrounding the lackluster amount of melting this year; a massive storm  the remnants of Hurricane Nicole  parked itself atop the continent, dumping a large amount of snow on the ice-covered continent: Hurricane Nicole dumping Heavy rain and snow in October in especially eastern Greenland gave record totals of precipitation in the main east coast town of Tasiilaq as the remnants of former hurricane Nicole passed by and, much as with Harvey in Houston this year, got lodged over eastern Greenland for some days. However, after Nicoles extreme precipitation, the rest of the winter was actually pretty average in terms of the amount of snow that fell. Because neither the higher-than-2012 arctic sea ice from 17 September 2017 nor the neutral amount of ice loss in Greenland in 2017 do anything to disrupt the overall trends of decreasing ice, and because climatological science does not require (nor does it expect) ice or temperature records to be broken every single year, we rank the claim that these observations are reasons to doubt the tenets of climate change as false. Watson, Tracey.  "Dont Look Now, but Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012."
  Natural News.  1 October 2017. Mottram, Ruth, et al.  "Guest Post: How the Greenland Ice Sheet Fared in 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  1 September 2017. Polar Portal.  "End of the SMB Season Summary 2017."
  12 September 2017. Morano, Marc.  "Massive Arctic Ice Gain (Up 40%) Since Low Point of 2012.
  Climate Depot.  19 September 2012. Hausfather, Zeke.  "State of the Climate: Warm Temperatures and Low Sea Ice Mark First Half of 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  21 July 2017. National Snow and Ice Data Center.  "Arctic Sea Ice at Minimum Extent."
  19 September 2017. Polar Science Center.  "PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis."
  Accessed 4 October 2017. NASA.  "End-of-Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Eighth Lowest on Record."
  19 September 2017. NASA.  "NASA Sees Tropical Storm Nicole Going Extra-Tropical."
  18 October 2016. In late February 2020, as a new coronavirus spread worldwide, a letter providing advice on avoiding a viral infection was shared and memed heavily. The letter is attributed to pathologist James Robb who described himself as "one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses." The letter itself provides common-sense solutions to preventing disease transmission: letter shared memed 1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc. 2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove. 3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors. 4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts. 5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been. 6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands. 7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more! The portion of the missive that garnered the most attention, however, was the pathologist's recommendation of zinc lozenges: Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available. This portion of the letter apparently resulted in memes suggesting the product Cold-Eeze was a "silver bullet" that would "kill coronavirus":   We reached out to Robb to ask if he was the author of this letter. Via email, he told us that he did indeed write it, but that it was never meant to be for anyone besides family and close friends, and that it was not intended to be an advertisement for any specific product: It was my email to my family and close friends ONLY. Someone put it on their Facebook page. It was intended to be a monologue - not a dialogue. I do not use any social media and may have been too naive about what "sharing" means today. His history with coronaviruses is accurately recounted. In the late 1970s, as professor of pathology at the University of California, San Diego, Robb published some of the earliest descriptions of coronaviruses. He also published a book chapter on this class of viruses for "Comprehensive Virology." earliest descriptions book chapter While Robb does recommend zinc lozenges (of any brand, he told us), he would not describe the product as the silver bullet solution to the outbreak: In my experience as a virologist and pathologist, zinc will inhibit the replication of many viruses, including coronaviruses. I expect COVID-19 [the disease caused by the novel coronavirus] will be inhibited similarly, but I have no direct experimental support for this claim. I must add, however, that using zinc lozenges as directed by the manufacturer is no guarantee against being infected by the virus, even if it inhibits the viral replication in the nasopharynx. In general terms, research suggests that zinc may be able to inhibit the spread of some viral infections, but the question remains scientifically unsettled. A 2010 study using cell cultures published in PLOS One found evidence that increasing intracellular zinc concentrations "can efficiently impair the replication of a variety of RNA viruses" including coronaviruses. According to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, "trials conducted in high-income countries since 1984 investigating the role of zinc for the common cold symptoms have had mixed results." The common cold is, in some cases, caused by a virus also classified as a coronavirus. 2010 study According common cold Because the letter was written by him, we rank this claim as Correctly Attributed" to Robb. For more tips on protecting against the coronavirus, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tip sheet here. tip sheet Bond, Clifford W., et al.  "Pathogenic Murine Coronaviruses II. Characterization of Virus-specific Proteins of Murine Coronaviruses JHSMV and A59V."
  Virology.  30 April 1979. Robb, James A. and Clifford W. Bond.  "Coronaviridae."
  Comprehensive Virology.  1979. te Velthuis, Aartjan J. W., et al.  "Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture."
  PLOS Pathogens.  4 November 2010. Singh, Meenu and Rashmi R. Das.  "Zinc for the Common Cold."
  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. &nbsp 18 June 2013. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Common Human Coronaviruses."
  Accessed 2 March 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Prevention and Treatment."
  Accessed 2 March 2020. Correction [13 March 2020]: Clarified that human coronaviruses are just one of several potential causes of the common cold.