Singapore orders correction to online posts on new virus variant

Singapore’s Ministry of Health is using a law against online misinformation to order corrections from social media and news agencies, on reports about an alleged Singaporean Covid-19 virus variant. —Bloomberg

Singapore’s Ministry of Health issued an order to Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and SPH Magazines requiring corrections to be made over what it says are online falsehoods that imply a new coronavirus variant had originated in the country.

"There is no new ‘Singapore’ variant of Covid-19,” the ministry said in a statement. "Neither is there evidence of any Covid-19 variant that is ‘extremely dangerous for kids’. The strain that is prevalent in many of the Covid-19 cases detected in Singapore in recent weeks is the B.1.617.2 variant, which originated from India.”