5G mobile networks don’t spread Covid-19, says government
DESPITE all the public announcements about Covid-19, including informative stories that debunk myths and hoaxes, some people still cling to conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus.
South Africa’s Government Communications Information Service (GCIS) took to twitter on Monday to debunk the #5gMyth.
Mobile phone towers in KwaZulu-Natal were torched last week by people who believed the myth that has spread worldwide about the Covid-19 virus being transmitted via a mobile phone signal or radio waves.
Mobile service providers in South Africa last week joined Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) Africa Check, as well as the ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Technology to dispute the myth, which has not been scientifically proven.
South Africa’s health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, dismissed claims of a link between 5G and the new coronavirus in this tweet in March last year.
Director of Media Monitoring Africa William Bird said in a television interview late last year that disinformation and misinformation is making it very difficult for the average news consumer to tell fact from fiction and that he sees one of the biggest challenges in 2021 dealing with people who distribute misinformation to try to sow seeds of discord which might well cause people to worry about the safety of vaccines.