Fact Check: WHO didn’t advice against consuming bakery products, fake post getting viral

A viral post on social media claims that one should stop eating bakery products as it is not washable and can get infected to the virus easily. The post also has a logo of World Health Organization (WHO) and a photo of some bakery products. Vishvas News investigated and found that World Health Organization (WHO) has not issued notification against the consumption of bakery products. The viral post is fake.

Claim

A viral post on social media reads: Stop eating bakery items! It is strictly advised to not eat bakery items as it is not washable and get infected to the virus easily. The post also has a logo of World Health Organization (WHO) and a photo of some bakery products. The archived version of the post can be checked here.

Investigation

Vishvas News started its investigation by searching whether the claim in the viral post against consuming bakery products has been made by World Health Organization (WHO). In the ‘Advice for Public‘ page of WHO, following preventive measures have been recommended against the new coronavirus:

Wash your hands frequently
Maintain social distancing
Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth
If you have fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical care early
Stay informed and follow advice given by your healthcare provider

We further investigated and found on the website of United States Food and Drug Administrator (FDA) that “Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19.”

It further states: “It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but we don’t think this is the main way the virus spreads at this time.”

On the official Twitter handle of WHO Sri Lanka we found a tweet which states that WHO has not advised against eating bakery items.

WHO Sri Lanka also posted the same clarification on it’s Facebook page:

We also spoke to the representative of World Health Organization (WHO) in India. She also said that this viral post is not issued by World Health Organization (WHO).

We also performed a reverse image search of the photo used in the viral post. We found that the photo had been used in an article of a British Baker website titled: Coronavirus: Bakers take action in face of pandemic.

There was no mention in the article about any WHO advisory against the consumption of bakery products.

When we performed social scanning of the Oye page, we found that the page has 3,161 followers.

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.