**2.1 COVID-19 is a hoax**

Conspiracy theorists, religious fanatics, pseudoscience and science denialists have always been present in the online space looking for means to peddle their belief to unsuspecting individuals [5]. Policies like travel restrictions and total lockdown gave room for much reliance on social media and the internet for information, especially about COVID-19. The novelty of the pandemic and the quest for information has given them a ground to catch many individuals unawares and get them to believe their claim. This has posed a major challenge to the fight against COVID-19 by its generation of fake cure claims, dismissal of public health expert's advice, stigmatization and spread of fear among many others [3, 6]. This is further aggravated when this misinformation is propagated by celebrities and influential people [3]. Major proponents of this claim have promoted their falsehood on the guise that COVID-19 is a biological weapon that was intentionally engineered in a laboratory to control the world population or a means for government and/or public-private enterprise for selfish gains. This is a major stumbling block to curtailing the menace of COVID-19. This has promoted refusal to uptake the COVID-19 vaccines and nonadherence to the preventive guidelines [6].

**Figure 2.** *Common myths about the COVID-19.*
