Coronavirus: desperate times drive some Chinese people to take desperate measures
- From the case of a woman who became ill from eating too much raw garlic to the people wearing water bottles as protection, some of the measures are unlikely to do much good
- One woman put so much surgical spirit on her clothing that she set fire to herself while cooking
Desperate to protect themselves from Covid-19, the disease that has affected more than 60,000 people and killed more than a thousand, fearful residents in China are turning to wacky, and sometimes dangerous, ways to protect themselves.
In some cases people have been influenced by online rumours and turning to unscientific remedies.
One woman in the eastern province of Zhejiang read online that raw garlic could help, but ate so much of it that she ended up needing hospital treatment after it inflamed her throat to the point where she could no longer speak.
The woman, from Tiantai county, identified only by her surname Zhang, ate around 1.5kg (3.3 pounds), around 16 bulbs, over two weeks.
She also asked doctors to perform a CAT scan on her lungs, even though she did not have a cough or fever, Qianjiang Evening News reported.
The results found there was no possibility that she had been infected with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, but the report said a doctor had told the woman: “You haven’t got the coronavirus at all, but a lot of inner heat [traditional Chinese medicine term] because of having plenty of garlic.”