Fake WhatsApp forwards add to Covid woes

CHENNAI: S Vijay Kumar, an IT employee in Chennai, was frantically scrolling through his contacts and social media to get the much-sought after medicine- Remdesivir - for his father, who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in the city after testing positive for Covid-19. Vijay posted enquiries on social media and within minutes his WhatsApp was flooded with messages providing contact numbers of medicine suppliers claiming to have stock of Remdesivir and oxygen suppliers in the city.

Vijay started calling one number after other and realised that almost 70% of the contact numbers were either wrong or not reachable. After much effort, he finally managed to find at least three vials of Remdesivir through a contact of his friend. His father is now recovering. But the struggle and trauma that Vijay underwent while dialling those wrong numbers just added to his distress. 

And this is not the lone case of Vijay. Many people who are in desperate need of medicines, oxygen, and beds in hospital for their loved ones suffering from Covid-19 and inquiring about it in social media, go through similar harrowing experiences due to misinformation.

“When any of your family members are in a serious condition and you are in search of medicines and oxygen for them, then every second counts. I dialled each of the phone numbers with the hope that I will get some good news about Remdesivir, but everytime when the number was wrong or unreachable, my heart sank. And in the process I lost almost one precious hour,” shared Vijay.

While Sandhya P, a wealth management advisor in Chennai, who faced similar trauma, said people may be circulating the messages with an intention to help, but the misinformation is doing more damage than good. “I got a WhatsApp message of a list of private hospitals in the city which have vacant beds to treat Covid-19 patients. Believe me, most of the numbers were incorrect in it,” said Sandhya.“I would genuinely request people to cross-verify such random messages before forwarding them because when a dear one is struggling for life every second matters,” added Sandhya.

Greater Chennai Corporation officials have claimed that the civic body is very active on all social media platforms and have dedicated control rooms to attend Covid-related distress calls. In order to get the correct information, people should reach out to them, it said. “Chennai corporation has a very strong presence on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms. We have dedicated teams to handle and immediately reply to the queries of people. I would request people to reach out to us for any information,” said corporation’s innovation officer, M P Azhagu Pandia Raja.