Misinformation and rumors surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic are easily spread on social media, so Guthrie County Public Health would like to distinguish fact from fiction.

Some people have claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have changed their stance on the publics’ use of face masks, which Public Health Director Jotham Arber clarifies that while the CDC has changed their recommendations on what type of mask people should wear, the importance of wearing a mask when you cannot stay six feet away from others has not faltered.

Another recent claim has been that the CDC “quietly” changed its statistics to show that only six percent of coronavirus deaths were caused by COVID-19. Arber says that doesn’t mean that 94% of the nation’s over 180,000 deaths weren’t caused by the virus, but that those individuals’ underlying health conditions were exacerbated by the virus. Arber gives a metaphor for the situation, “So I’m out in the woods and I get attacked by a bear. I also have type one diabetes so I have to watch my sugars. If I go to the E.R. because I’m losing a lot of blood, my sugars are out of control, and I die because my sugars were out of control, we would still consider my death by mauling of a bear, right? Or looking at a cancer patient, if a cancer patient has a surgery and they end up dying because of immediate infection, it’s still a cancer-related death.”

Arber says the public generally shouldn’t receive all of their COVID-19 information from social media, and he continues to recommend that residents wear a face mask when they can’t social distance from others, frequently wash hands and surfaces, and stay home when you feel sick.