Rumours, superstition and lack of scientific temper make for a deadly cocktail. Lethal enough to kill an estimated 250 egret and cormorant chicks in Assam late June. A civic body in Tangla township, about 90 km from capital Guwahati, decided not only to act on people’s complaints about foul smell created by bird droppings in a locality, but even invented the idea that the unhygienic conditions could lead to spread of the coronavirus.