It has been reported by a section of the Indian media that scientists from Wuhan in China have said that NeoCov, a variant of Sars-Cov-2 and MERS, is going to kill one person out of every three infected people. This has scared millions already, especially with social media forwards, posts and memes on Instagram amplifying the message. The variant is said to have been discovered in South Africa. Its transmission rate is high and its fatality is even higher.

But the fear seems to be unfounded, at least if the available evidence (or the lack of it) is anything to go by. Journalist Shachi Sutaria tweeted that the headlines are sending people in a tizzy when the scientists are only talking about a possibility and there are no human cases. "The transmission to humans is rare. It is still a non-peer-reviewed pre-print. Headlines really need to stop scaring readers," she added.

Hemant Rajaura, a senior journalist, tweeted, "So far, there have been no cases of people being infected by NeoCoV and scientists are urging more research to establish if it can infect humans or not."

Meanwhile, WHO has said that whether the virus detected in the study will pose a risk for humans will require further study. In other words, nothing is confirmed as yet.