By Lucas Cuni-Mertz

The Kansas City Public Library will be hosting a discussion tonight at 6:30 p.m. tackling myths surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The event, titled “Myths (And Mythbusting) in the Era of COVID-19,” partners with Truman Medical Center (TMC) and local doctors to address some of the most prevalent coronavirus myths. The end of the event will be devoted to a Q&A with the doctors, as well.

The event will be live online at YouTube.com/kclibrary.

“The library’s mission is to be a beacon of information for the community,” said Kansas City Public Library Media Relations Specialist Talia Evans. “Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, myths have circulated about the virus from how to avoid getting sick to the effectiveness of masks.” 

The library hopes the event will help sort out fact from fiction. 

The event will feature doctors Paramdeep Baweja and Mark Steele. Both doctors are University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) professors and are passionate about informing the public on health issues. 

Steele oversees all clinical hospital functions as executive chief clinical officer of TMC and University Health. His specialty is emergency medicine. Baweja is a cardiology specialist.

Evans said the event is another example of how the library works to help the community.

“A lot of people in the community come to us looking for facts and information, and providing them with this information goes along with our overall mission,” Evans said. 

The event is one of a few ways the library is helping the community during this challenging time, including going out to parks to help people sign up for the summer reading program and offering online literacy tools such as Lynda and BrainFuse as well.