The government of India has issued an advisory to all the social media platforms to immediately remove any content which names, refers to or implies Indian Variant of COVID-19 as there is no such variant cited by the World Health Organisation. The notice in this regard was issued by the Information Technology Ministry on Friday (May 21).
It needs to be mentioned that experts in India and abroad as well as the global media have repeatedly been referring to the Indian Variant ever since the second wave swept the country sometimes back. The international media has often been referring to the UK Variant, Brazilian Variant, South African Variant etc. as well.
The government directive has come as India continues to officially report more than four thousand cases daily due to the pandemic. In the last 24 hours, 4,194 people have died while 2.57 lakh patients have tested positive. The death toll is rising even as many states are witnessing decline in the positivity rate. Tamil Nadu, however, is the one state where the positivity rate is not declining. On the other hand, rural UP continues to report large number of cases with corona virus-like symptoms and subsequent deaths. There is a sharp decline in number of cases in Delhi.
In the last 24 hours, India with 20.66 lakh, recorded highest number of testing.
