COVID-19 pandemic struck the world over a year ago and with no end in sight to the pandemic, people are still trying to find ways to cope with the virus. In April last year, a claim by a German virologist went viral after he claimed that drinking whiskey can kill coronavirus. It's been a year since Dr Juergen Rissland, the head doctor at the Institute for Virology at Saarland University Hospital in Germany, made the claim and to this day, people are using it as foundation to base their arguments on why alcohol might not be such a bad thing during the pandemic.
Whiskey can kill coronavirus
In an interview, which was aired by German public broadcaster SWR last year at the peak of the pandemic, Dr. Rissland was asked if drinking alcoholic beverage every 15 minutes would wash down all viruses down the throat. To everyone's surprise, Dr. Rissland said "Yes, of course."
"Yes, of course that is correct, and the higher the alcohol is, the better it is. So if you are, for example, a whiskey-lover, then that is not a bad method at all. But of course it is obvious you can't do that every 15 minutes. On the other hand, with drinking in general, it isn't so much if you do it every quarter of an hour - but that you drink enough during the day, you know, you should drink between 1 and 2 litres per day, that is very sensible," Dr. Rissland was quoted as saying in a translated version.
The virologist's claim was widely reported and to this day, people are sharing last year's article as a baseline for their argument to defend drinking that "last peg."
Hold on to that top-shelf booze
But it appears many readers rushed to conclusions just by reading the headline. Upon further research, we found Dr. Rissland even backed down from his claim, if not he did so without the same enthusiasm. Translated transcript of Dr. Rissland's full interview goes on to reveal that the virologist didn't exactly encourage people to go on a drinking spree.
When the interviewer asked Dr. Rissland if he actually recommended drinking whiskey as prevention against coronavirus, he said "it is definitely not a panacea" and people shouldn't get him wrong.
"I just wanted to make the point that the virus is vulnerable to high-proof alcohol, because it has an outer layer made of fat, and high proof alcohol destroys the virus. And one would need to drink quite a lot to get any sort of protection from infection," the virologist claims.
Dr. Rissland strongly agreed when the interviewer said it would cost one's liver in attempt to get rid of coronavirus.
