Last time when PM Modi asked people to come out of their homes at 5 PM for 5 minutes and make sounds by ringing bells or clanking the steel vessels, some ‘WhatsApp scientists’ added that the Prime Minister is following a sound therapy that could kill coronavirus. And now, the batch is back with their fake messages around Modi’s 9 minutes light up call.
Asking citizens to switch off lights and light up diyas and candles, PM Modi gave the call for light-vigil to be taken up this Sunday at 9 PM for 9 minutes. Reacting on the same, some WhatsApp messages are now doing rounds saying that NASA found that all the nine planets will be in perfect alignment on the time given by Modi, and lighting up this diyas is nothing but a mahayagam whose light intensity could kill Covid-19. Also, the message attaches that this knowledge is there in Yazurvedam itself.
Another ‘fake message’ is that the virus will not survive temperature rise and lighting up candles/diyas for 9 minutes will increase the temperature of India, thereby killing the coronavirus. Another message is that, Covid-19 virus can’t survive in the darkness for long, and hence shutting down of all the artificial lights.
But all these ‘fake messages’ have no basis and backing of the science or anything but are getting mushroomed on WhatsApp only as more and more people believe them due to the fear factor. In reality, only social distancing, isolation, handwashing, hygiene and following the lockdown will save people from Covid-19 but not anything else.
