This prediction cannot be found in any issue of  The Farmer’s Almanac, a publication that provides long-range weather predictions and advice for farming and gardening since the 18th century. The photo is actually from a book by author Sylvia Browne in 2008.

Rumors have spread that phone tracing apps give public health officials the ability to monitor not only you, but the numbers stored in your phone, and the people you are friends with on Facebook.

Apps like Healthy Together and ABTraceTogether do not have accees to the your phone contacts or your social media profiles. The apps use Bluetooth and/or GPS technology to trace the user’s locations with their consent.

California Department of Social Services has released a statement notifying the public that this letter is false:

“We have alerted the appropriate county authorities for investigation. If you receive this letter, please disregard it. State departments and county human services departments NEVER will ask about your health status in connection to an application for benefits. Similarly, children must be subject to abuse or neglect to enter foster care. Children cannot be put into foster care just because a parent may be ill.”

This claim is false. The CDC reccomends masks in public community spaces, such as grocery stores or pharmacies, because they have the ability to slow the spread of the coronavirus from asymptomatic carriers of the virus. You should still refrain from touching your face and wash your hands on a regular basis.

Should you shower every time you come from the store? While hand-washing and mask-wearing are ways to prevent transmission of the virus,  excessive showering may not be necessary. The novel coronavirus is spread most commonly with airborne droplets through person-to-person contact, according to the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has not provided any details on showering when every time you come home.

The CDC reccomends that people use plain soap and water when handwashing because there is currently no evidence antibacterial soaps are any more effective.

Under the Leave No Taxpayer Behind Act, proposed by Democratic Reps. Lou Correa (CA-46), Judy Chu (CA-27) and Raúl Grijalva (AZ-3) , only undocumented immigrants who have Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers and pay taxes would receive aid. Undocumented immigrants who did not work or who worked in “under the table” jobs would not be included.

Social media users are posting videos of seemingly empty hospitals and testing sites, tagged #FilmYourHospital, in an attempt to prove that some politicians and media outlets are exaggerating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the medical systems in hotspot zones.

Multiple hospitals and medical centers have reduced foot traffic because they are not allowing visitors…furloughed nonessential employees, canceled elective procedures and stopped using the tents to test outpatients with mild virus symptoms in an attempt to divert resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 37,000 people with the coronavirus have now died in the United States, according to a New York Times database., with a rate that continues number 2,000 a day.

A spokesperson for Google told USA Today that the removal of the church’s app was not due to its religious content, specifically sermons.

The app was found to violate Google’s Sensitive Events policy:

“We don’t allow apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards or capitalize on a natural disaster, atrocity, conflict, death, or other tragic event,” said the company in an email to Christ Church.

“For example, your app currently contains references to COVID-19 in the store listing screenshots and within the app experience. Please thoroughly check your app and remove all references, and any related terms to COVID-19, from the store listing and from within the app.”

According to the Google Play Developer Policy Center, here are a few examples of common violations of the Sensitive Events policy:

• Lacking sensitivity regarding the death of a real person or group of people due to suicide, overdose, natural causes, etc.
• Denying a major tragic event.
• Appearing to profit from a tragic event with no discernible benefit to the victims.

According to Dr. Wing Hong Seto, the co-director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, each side of the mask as a specific purpose to protect the wearer.

“You see it has the blue color on the outside because it is waterproof and then you have white on the inside because it is absorbent,”  he said. “So, if I cough, it absorbs it.”