Corona brand beer is not concerned that people may somehow think it has some connection to the coronavirus, a spokesperson for the company told The Hill Thursday.
“Consumers, by and large, understand there’s no linkage between the virus and our beer/business,” Maggie Bowman, communications director at Constellation Brands, Corona’s producer, said in a statement.
Corona’s statement follows multiple reports suggesting based on people’s Google searches that some think there could be a link between the beer and the disease, which has killed 170 people in China.
While there has been an increase in Google searches for “beer virus” and “corona beer virus,” those are both dwarfed by searches for simply “beer” or “coronavirus.”
There is no link between the beer and the disease.
Corona, the beer, is named that way after its Spanish meaning — crown — while the disease is named coronavirus because of the crown-like spikes on the virus.
Misinformation online about the coronavirus has been rampant, with posts inflating death tolls and infected counts going viral.
Many social media platforms have taken steps to direct users to government information on the disease in an effort to curb potentially harmful false content.