He said he had a cold. Chinese social media quickly turned it into coronavirus

VANCOUVER—“Maybe it’s just a cold,” mused a man Tuesday on his WeChat channel in a post about having a cough and fever after returning to North Vancouver from Wuhan, China, the centre of a coronavirus outbreak.

In the Jan. 21 post on the wildly popular Chinese social media platform, he urged people who know him and “had contact” with him to take precautions in case he actually was infected.

That was all the internet needed.

Soon, Chinese-language WeChat channels based in Canada were splashing around alarming headlines reporting that there was now a possible case of the virus in Vancouver.

On Thursday, the poster, whose name has been blanked out of his social media posts, gave an update saying he’d been to the hospital and did not have coronavirus. He also chastised WeChat channels for creating hysteria by playing up his post.

“It drew great panic among Chinese residents in the Great Van Area,” he wrote, “and led to stores being sold out of face masks. It really bothers me.”

It’s not an isolated incident. Thursday afternoon another WeChat rumour claimed that a woman with a coronavirus had escaped Wuhan, currently under quarantine due to the virus, and was making her way to Toronto. In her post, the woman said she was able to move up her flight to catch an earlier one out of Wuhan and would be in Toronto the next day. The post gave no indication that the woman felt ill.

WeChat channels again mobilized, with one headline reading: “Breaking! A suspected patient from Wuhan flying to Toronto after the city lockdown? Canada health authority reminds Ontario of the risk of the new virus.”

The incidents show a need for government communication strategies in languages other than English at times of heightened fears of public health issues, according to Kevin Huang, the executive director of the Hua Foundation, an organization that works to bridge gaps between Chinese and non-Chinese communities.

One place where such a gap exists is people who don’t have a strong grasp of English being able to get credible information in their own language, Huang said.

In this case, he said, because the virus originated in China, governments in Canada should ensure Chinese communities get solid information in Chinese languages.

“There is an onus, I think, in responsibility for health authorities locally and government locally to reach the communities that are probably travelling, have families (there) and things like that and even reside here and may not have full capture of English language ability,” Huang said.

Canadian cities, particularly Vancouver and Toronto, are quite diverse, which makes it imperative to get accurate information out in multiple languages at times of public health concern, he said.

According to Canada’s 2016 census, out of Metro Vancouver’s 2.4 million people, 620,000 speak a language other than English or French most often at home. Of the Greater Toronto Area’s nearly six million residents, about 1.4 million spoke a language other than English or French at home.

So far, the B.C. Ministry of Health has released a statement underlining that no cases have been found in Canada and outlining steps the government is taking to monitor for signs of the virus. Ontario’s Ministry of Health released a statement Wednesday detailing new reporting requirements for doctors in the province and noting there had been no confirmed cases in Ontario. Health Canada held a press conference Thursday afternoon in Ottawa to update the media on the situation.

Canadian health officials have said several people in Canada were being monitored for signs of a coronavirus, but again reiterated that there had been no confirmed cases in the country. At least 17 people have died in China and another 500 people have been infected, with cases popping up in other countries as well.

Government communications about coronavirus appeared to be in English only. The B.C. Ministry of Health did not say whether it would craft releases in Chinese going forward.

Huang said he isn’t suggesting governments put out releases in every language, but what portion of the population speaks a language and if an emergency or health concerns affects the community speaking it should be used to decide what languages in which to communicate.

“Silos of information really harm us as a society, especially very diverse and multicultural and multilingual society where we’re right beside each other,” he said. “If we’re not preparing our citizens to protect themselves and protect the people they’re around, it does compromise global efforts to contain, in this case, the coronavirus.”

The problem of false information on social media has also happened on English social media. One Twitter post Wednesday said two people had been exhibiting coronavirus-like symptoms at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.

The university has said it is unaware of anyone at the institution who has been confirmed to have the virus or is suspected of having the virus.

With files from The Canadian Press

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