No, 38% of Americans Aren’t Confusing the Coronavirus with Corona Beer

Nothing inspires bullshit marketers more than a terrifying international story, which is why PR firm 5WPR has teamed up with CNN to harvest those sweet viral clicks with this article and accompanying Tweet that claims:

38% of Americans wouldn’t buy Corona beer “under any circumstances” because of the coronavirus, according to a recent survey.

Just to be abundantly clear: There is no link between the virus and the beer.

So now everyone on Twitter is raging about what a bunch of morons Americans are.

Don’t get me wrong: Americans are a bunch of morons. But in this case, it’s just not true. The actual survey, which you can read about in 5WPR’s press release (because this is just a way to get press for a public relations company and has nothing to do with educating the masses about the coronavirus), does show that “38% of beer-drinking Americans would not buy Corona under any circumstances.” However, that doesn’t actually have to do with the coronavirus because those beer-drinking Americans weren’t drinking Corona in the first place, probably because they have working taste buds. I know this because the survey also found that “Among those who said they usually drink Corona, only 4% said they would stop drinking Corona, but 14% said they wouldn’t order Corona in a public venue.”

To be crystal clear, that means only 4% of Americans surveyed were complete morons, not 38%.

Because this is just a marketing pitch and not an actual scientific study, we have no idea how many of the surveyed people were Corona drinkers. So I found another stupid survey from last year that found that 45% of respondents like Corona. 5WPR polled 737 people, which would mean that 332 of them may have been regular Corona-drinkers. 4% of that is 13 people. So 5WPR called 737 and found 13 Corona drinkers who said they were not going to drink Corona anymore, and now USA Today, the New York Post, Yahoo, CNN, and many other outlets are running stories suggesting that 125 million Americans are blithering morons. That’s so unfair, considering that only half that number voted for Trump.

So please, stop spreading misinformation from public relations firms. Instead share this delightful meme created for us by Courtney Caldwell: