There’s a fake text message about the coronavirus circulating through people’s phones right now. But the Kansas Department of Health and Environment encourages people not to believe it.
What’s going on:
- Kansas residents are receiving spam messages about the coronavirus that say there have been new confirmed cases of the COVID-19 at different hospitals in the area, KWCH-12 reports.
- KDE said in a statement: “There are scams and are not true.”
- Kansas has four cases of COVID-19 right now.
There are real text alerts, though
- San Francisco launched a coronavirus text message alert system on March 6, giving residents access to the latest news about the virus, according to NBC Bay Area.
- The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management and the Department of Public Health said the text system will allow people to send real information about the virus to those living in San Francisco.
South Korea used apps for coronavirus prevention
- In South Korea, citizens turned to smartphone apps to help them stay safe from the coronavirus outbreak, which I wrote about for the Deseret News earlier this month.
- The apps allowed people to see how close they were to people with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.
- Developers said the apps were some of the most popular on the Google Play store at the time they dropped.