- A new video went viral claiming iodine can be used to help prevent COVID-19.
- Experts say that is false and makes no sense because COVID-19 is the result of a virus, not bacteria.
- Also, gargling and ingesting iodine solutions can be dangerous.
Getting medical advice solely from social media trends is usually not the best way to safeguard your health. Often, it can be dangerous.
A recent YouTube video that went viral on Facebook and Twitter is spreading incorrect information about how gargling the antiseptic iodine can prevent COVID-19 — an absolutely incorrect notion, according to experts.
The video was shared in April and has been viewed more than 155,000 times. According to the caption, doctors suggest gargling with povidone-iodine to prevent COVID-19 from entering the lungs.
None of this is true.
And it can even be dangerous if you end up swallowing the iodine.
“You should not ingest or gargle with iodine in order to prevent COVID-19,” said Dr. Theodore Strange, interim chair of Medicine at Staten Island University Hospital in New York. “I don’t know where this idea came from. Iodine does have properties to be an antiseptic. We put it on cuts and lesions, and it has been used in mouthwash in the past. It cleanses the skin and kills bacteria. But COVID is not a bacteria. It is a virus.”
Source: healthline