“Fake news” condemned by minister

Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic has once again condemned efforts to undermine the country’s public health officials through the “malicious” spread of fake news about the country’s COVID-19 situation.

He has also vehemently denied the existence of either limited local and/or community transmission of the dreaded virus as suggested in a viral voice note circulated over the last 24-hours.

“I would just like to ask all persons who continue to spread malicious rumours to stop doing so, because they are only creating anxiety in the country and it is only causing the staff of the Ministry of Health and Wellness to have to divert their energy from the serious matters relating to COVID-19, to have to be explaining and reassuring people all the time as to what the situation is,” appealed Bostic on national radio. 

The voice note which warned of COVID-19 community spread referenced an “elderly woman living at London Bourne Towers” was apparently sent out by a “well-known” Barbadian.

“One of my work colleagues just found out that one of their friends got ‘COVID’ a couple days ago and there are one of the kind of people that wouldn’t come into contact with a tourist and they would not have been able to catch it other than locally spread,” the voice message alleged.

It further suggested that the “victim” believed she contracted the virus at a popular local supermarket.

“So the ‘COVID’ is here and I’m interested to see if it gets into the papers or on the statistics on Facebook. She was confirmed positive today [yesterday],” the unnamed individual added.

Minister Bostic vehemently refuted there was any community spread and again stressed that there would be total transparency regarding local developments as health officials have been doing all along.

“There is absolutely no truth to the voice note. I know that very often we have to respond to these kinds of mischievous things that go on social media, but I give the assurance that I have always given that we have no evidence of community spread in this country. We don’t have local transmission at the moment. I receive the results of testing on a daily basis, Bostic declared. 

“I really would like people to have faith in the technical teams of the Ministry of Health and Wellness that are doing this hard work. They have been doing it well over the last several months. If we have any issues that we are sure we need to report, we will do so. That is a guarantee that I give to the people of Barbados,” the minister promised.

The Lieutenant Colonel has also pledged to investigate the origin of the “malicious” voice note to determine exactly who is responsible, their rationale for circulating the message “and try to deal with it”.