When important news, especially about health issues, need to be disseminated to the population, it’s vital that misinformation doesn’t find its way into the mix.
If that happens, distrust against our medical institutions may arise. That was apparently the concern recently when an article about the new XBB Covid-19 variant was circulated in certain circles.
As a result, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has issued Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) correction directions to those guilty of spreading fake news.
Source: Markus Spiske on Pexels, for illustration purposes only
All in all, MOH issued the POFMA directions to People’s Power Party’s (PPP) Goh Meng Seng, HardwareZone Forum and Thailand Medical News.
According to an article by the MOH, Thailand Medical News published an article titled ‘BREAKING! Singapore Is Under Attack By The New SARS-CoV-2 XBB Recombinant Variant With COVID-19 Infections And Hospitalizations Rising. Thailand Could Be Next!’
The report apparently claimed that increased Covid-19 severity is becoming common in Singapore. Mortuaries, funeral parlours, and crematoria also face a ‘pile-up’ in cases, implying that death rates from Covid-19 have increased.
MOH deems these claims to be completely false.
Thailand News also had the article reports on their Facebook and Twitter pages.
Correcting these claims, MOH countered the article’s points with a list of facts.
Firstly, they stated that there has been no evidence of the XBB subvariant causing more severe illness than previous ones.
In fact, local data in the past two weeks show that XBB cases have an estimated 30% lower risk of hospitalisation.
This is in comparison to the Omicron subvariant.
There has also been no increase in Covid-19 deaths in the past month, noted the MOH.
Even though Thailand Medical News has amended the article, MOH says that the article has already caused undue public concern.
Since it has come to this point, MOH has instructed the POFMA office to issue correction directions to Thailand Medical News, Mr Goh, and HardwareZone.
The latter two shared the article on their Facebook page and forum respectively.
These directions require each affected party to insert a notice against the original post or article.
They will also need to provide a link to the Government’s clarification.
After MOH’s statement was published, Mr Goh took to Facebook to express his thoughts on the POFMA instructions.
Source: Goh Meng Seng on Facebook
In his statement, he says that he “merely questioned whether the article is true or not”.
He then questioned the Government’s decision to lift vaccination-differentiated safe management measures (VDS).
He ends the post by asking, “Like that also kena POFMA?!”
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Featured image adapted from Onur Binay on Unsplash.
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