Coronavirus superstitions: From Qom to London, from Moscow to Milan

The vacuum created by the lack of an effective vaccine to treat the coronavirus has led people in many countries to turn to superstitious or unscientific methods to relieve the fear of contracting the coronavirus.

Studies show that the prevalence of these ignorant methods is greater in countries where citizens do not trust their government or where superstitious governments are in power.

As reported in the news, the worst situation in the world in this regard is in Iran, where the number of people who have killed themselves by consuming industrial alcohol "in the hope of curing coronavirus" has reached more than 700.

And yet, the Islamic Republic government has not seen a strong campaign to inform all citizens about avoiding these unscientific methods, because this government itself is preoccupied with issues such as cautious interaction with proponents of Islamic medicine.

This government has not taken any serious action against the distributors of substances called "Imam Kazem's medicine" and "violet oil" in the cities, nor has it taken any rapid and initial action against the licking of the shrine in Qom, nor has it fundamentally prevented clerics like Morteza Kohnsal from entering hospitals, who have made the specter of death fly over patients more quickly by rubbing "the Prophet's perfume" on their lips.

But the turn to fake treatments has also begun in other parts of the world, although its scale and damage are less than in Iran.

Dangerous fake cures now circulating online and claiming victims include eating volcanic ash, drinking cow urine, using ultraviolet lamps or chlorine disinfectants, drinking silver solution, and taking cocaine.

Russia and Italy

Paolo Gelano, an Italian citizen living in the United States, was forced to fly to Moscow first and wait for hours for the next flight to Italy when his direct flight from New York was canceled on March 13th of this year.

He saw people queuing at the Moscow airport to buy a drug called Arbidol, and the Russians there told him that the drug "cures coronavirus."

Arbidol, which was developed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, was one of the old "anti-flu" drugs in the Soviet Union, but its effectiveness was never confirmed by scientific and medical communities, and Western countries did not allow its import.

In 2007, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences once again announced through scientific testing that Arbidol and a group of other Soviet-era drugs had no therapeutic effect, and a group of Russian doctors even warned citizens about the dangers of Arbidol. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has always stated that he has a "positive opinion" of the drug, and now every amount of Arbidol produced in Russia is quickly purchased and consumed by citizens.

Paolo Gelano, who was idle for hours at the Moscow airport on March 13th of this year, took a video of himself and jokingly said, "We are in Moscow and now we are going to buy Arbidol, a drug that treats coronavirus."

He uploaded the video to Facebook, and it wasn't long before many users saw it and declared that "the Italian government is deliberately withholding this vital medicine from its citizens."

The conspiracy theory reached such a high that many Italians rushed to buy the drug online, prompting Giulia Grillo, the country's former health minister, to ask citizens in a message: "Who do you trust more? A doctor or a masked person at the Moscow airport?"

Paolo Gelano, who took the video, has announced that the two packages of Arbidol he bought in Moscow are still in his drawer and that he does not believe in using this "medicine."

This approach in Russia and Italy does not end there, and now a group of Russians believe that necklaces made of pure silver can ward off both "vampires" and the coronavirus.

In Italy, there is currently a group that believes that drinking very hot tea, especially above 27 degrees Celsius, kills the Covid-19 virus; this has not yet been proven.

India

Last month, dozens of activists from the Hindu nationalist party, the ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hosted a cow urine drinking party.

Suman Harpriya, a legislator from the Indian state of Assam, told reporters at the gathering that cow urine and feces "cure coronavirus," and other party members present at the venue also confirmed his statements.

Om Prakash, one of the participants in the party, also said, "We have been drinking cow urine and bathing in cow dung for 21 years. We have never felt the need for British medicines until now."

Experts have repeatedly warned that cow urine and feces, as well as some traditional Indian medicines, have no known effect in treating Covid-19 or cancers.

Netherlands and Britain

Right now, when quarantined people need online and telephone communications more than ever, people in some countries, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have burned and destroyed 5G high-speed internet towers, believing that the coronavirus outbreak is somehow "related to them."

Groups in the Netherlands have long opposed the advent of super-fast 5G internet, citing concerns about the potential adverse effects of radiation from powerful 5G masts on public health. Some also fear that the technology will violate people's privacy.

But recently, a rumor that the coronavirus outbreak is also the work of these masts has caused at least four large 5G masts to be set on fire in the south of the Netherlands in recent days, and reports of the destruction of 5G facilities in various parts of the Netherlands have also been transmitted.

British cabinet ministers, whose country has also witnessed vandalism of 5G masts in recent days, have declared the issue of a possible connection between 5G technology and the coronavirus to be "fake news and complete lies."

Belarus and others

Authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has said that those who fear the coronavirus are "psychopathic," has refused to take restrictive measures and quarantines to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

He has advised his countrymen to go to the villages and farm with tractors. He says that tractors are “the cure for all ills” and that tractors “will defeat the coronavirus.”

Lukashenko has also advised everyone not only to wash their hands with alcohol but also to drink vodka every day to "kill" the coronavirus.

Among the former Soviet countries, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow has also called on his countrymen to fight the coronavirus by smoking ephedra.

Scientists and experts have a long way to go to combat the flood of ignorance, but in this regard, some governments, such as the French government, have come to the aid of scientists by making efforts to disseminate scientific information and providing websites that list fake methods of combating the coronavirus.

Source: Radio Farda