Photo: BC Gov't

A warning to those quick to hit the "share" button on social media: A list purporting to be "Wisdom from Dr. Bonnie Henry" is making the rounds online, and it is definitely not anything the B.C. Public Health Official authored.

The list of 16 items runs the gamut of sound bite-style take-aways from Dr. Henry's many press conferences and interviews, however while the ideas may ring somewhat familiar in step with things she has said, none of the items on the list are direct quotes from Dr. Henry, nor did she assemble the list.

The list isn't new to the internet, with roots going back to mid-May and a connection to a U.S. physician in Maryland. However, the list is newly showing Dr. Henry as its author.

That doctor is Dr. Faheen Younus, the Chief of Infectious Diseases, University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health. The list actually has its roots in the multiple tweets Dr. Younus shared into May on his personal Twitter feed. The paraphrased format first appeared, and was widely shared, thanks to an article on the site TheAZB.com.

If you take the first piece of "wisdom," in the now-circulating Dr. Henry-attributed posts, it reads: "We may have to live with C19 for months or years. Let's not deny it or panic. Let's not make our lives useless. Let's learn to live with this fact."

TheAZB.com begins its recap of Dr. Younus' tweeted items as follows: "He Tweets We will live with Covid19 for months. Let’s not deny it or panic. Let’s not make life unnecessarily difficult. Let us learn to be happy and live with that fact."

Similarly, the items in the list are paraphrased and tweaked as they are adapted by each re-poster or re-formatter of the list. For example, while The AZB.com summarizes a thought attributed to Dr. Younus as "You cannot be protected from the virus by drinking / eating vinegar, sumac, soda and ginger." The Dr. Henry-attributed phony list reads as follows: "You can't be protected from the virus by taking vinegar, sugarcane juice and ginger! These are for immunity not a cure."

Dr. Younus himself discredited the viral post, which moved rapidly on WhatsApp.

Forms of the list show up on Google as being reproduced all over, with varying attribution or none at all, from church newsletters to personal blogs.

Dr. Henry's COVID-19 provincial case media updates are published on the Province of British Columbia's website, and reputable sources readily cover the regular press conferences here in B.C.