New Delhi: A fake piece of news is doing rounds on social media claiming that the Modi government will be imposing a nationwide lockdown in the month of July in the wake of the third wave of Covid-19. On Wednesday, the government’s Press Information Bureau Fact Check team took to Twitter and busted the fake news.

“One #फर्जी In the picture, quoting PM Modi, the third wave of the corona has been claimed to have started and the lockdown has been imposed. #PIBFactCheck  No such announcement has been made by the PM.  Please do not share such misleading messages.  Kovid must adopt appropriate behavior to prevent corona,” tweeted PIB Fact Check.

Claims:

  • The fake piece of news suggested that the third wave of Covid-19 has already started.
  • The post quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as having made the announcement.
  • It post also advised people to continue following Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, including wearing masks, practicing handwashing with soap and water and following physical distancing in public.

On Sunday, Dr NK Arora, the chief of the Centre’s Covid-19 working group said that the third wave of coronavirus could be delayed until December this year. “ICMR has come up with a study, which says the third wave will come late in the country,” Dr Arora said.

“We have a window period of 6 to 8 months to vaccinate everybody in the country,” the chairman of the central panel said. He also said that in the coming days, the government’s target is to administer one crore Covid-19 vaccine doses every day in India.

The Delta Plus new variant of Covid-19, which has created fresh concerns across the country, cannot be yet linked to a third wave of the pandemic, Dr Arora has said.

However, he asserted that as variants are linked to new waves, the possibility can’t be dismissed at all. “Waves are linked to new variants or new mutations so there is a possibility as this is a new variant, but whether it will lead to a third wave it is difficult to answer as it will depend upon two or three things,” Arora told news agency PTI.