Alongside household staples like hand sanitizer, maize, rice, and diapers, residents of Nairobi will be receiving small bottles of Hennessy cognac in their government-issued coronavirus care packages, CNN reports. Mike Sonko, the governor of the Kenyan capital, justified the distribution of Hennessy by calling it a "throat sanitizer" and falsely claiming it is "believed that alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus."
Experts, though, say drinking alcohol can actually make your immune system weaker, and leave you more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. "Please completely ignore clowning of a major global pandemic taking lives & putting extreme pressure on households," tweeted Githinji Gitahi, the CEO of Amref Health Africa. "Dump [the Hennessy] the way you would dump your used #COVID19 #mask — never to be recovered!"
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