Fact Check: Post claiming Clorox already knew about coronavirus and coronavirus isn’t new virus is misleading

A viral post on social media shows the picture of Clorox label along with the text which claims that Clorox kills coronavirus and there is no NEW Coronavirus. Vishvas News investigated and found that the viral post is misleading.

Claim

The viral post shared on Facebook by a user named Cheryl Robinson reads: “A friend of mine checked the back of her Clorox wipes and, what do you know, the human coronavirus is listed among the things that these wipes kill. I checked our wipes and, sure enough, it is listed. So my take is, as I suspected, this is no “NEW VIRUS” as the news media wants us to believe.” The post is accompanied by a picture of Clorox with the mention that Clorox kills Human Coronavirus. The archived version of the post can be checked here.

Investigation

With the increasing cases of novel coronavirus patients, misinformation related to the same is also increasing. A Facebook post highlights Human Coronavirus on the label of Clorox disinfecting wipes and says there is no NEW VIRUS as coronavirus is mentioned in the label of Clorox since beforehand.

When Vishvas News investigated we found on the website of World Health Organization (WHO) that “the current outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019.” This NEW strain of coronavirus ‘Novel Coronavirus’ was reported on December 31, 2019 was not known earlier.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a NEW strain that has not been previously identified in humans.

As per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s. The seven coronaviruses that can infect people are:

229E (alpha coronavirus)

NL63 (alpha coronavirus)

OC43 (beta coronavirus)

HKU1 (beta coronavirus)

MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)

SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)

2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

The 2019 novel coronavirus is a NEW strain in the coronavirus family.

Documents submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency show that Clorox wipes are able to list “Human Coronavirus” on their labels because those products were tested against human coronavirus 229E which is a common human coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains.

Vishvas News Spoke to Ms. Patricia of Consumer Case Department, Clorox over mail. She said that some of the Clorox products are effective against similar strains of the virus. The NEW coronavirus was not identified beforehand.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAuRGyRHqmF/

Disclaimer: The #CoronavirusFacts database records fact-checks published since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic and its consequences are constantly evolving and data that was accurate weeks or even days ago might have changed. Remember to check the date when the fact-check you are reading was published before sharing it.

Conclusion: The post claiming that the new coronavirus was known beforehand as Clorox label shows that it kills human coronavirus’ is misleading. The novel coronavirus was first reported in December 31, 2019. The novel coronavirus was not known beforehand.

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• Coronavirus