16:38,
YEREVAN, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS. Healthcare Minister Arsen Torosyan has called on Armenians not to believe conspiracy theories around the COVID-19 pandemic and warned that doing so may result in letting one’s guard down and losing vigilance as the numbers of confirmed cases grow.
“Parallel to the growth of coronavirus disease cases the number of those who believe in conspiracy theories is also growing. This is concerning in terms of people potentially letting down their guard towards the disease. And this in turn means that this can contribute to more cases happening soon,” Torosyan said on social media.
Torosyan said there are many phrases like “We are definitely going to get micro-chips”, “No such disease exists”, “It won’t get us”, “It is an international bluff”, “It is all a lie”, “It’s for getting foreign funding” on social media.
“Such opinions are also widely covered by the press. We don’t want our population to lose vigilance and if this trend continues we will have to report the details of social media users spreading such false and unsubstantiated claims to the law enforcement agencies, first of all to understand who stands behind this and what are their motives on endangering our citizens,” the minister said.
Given the growing number of COVID-19 cases, Torosyan once more asked citizens to be highly vigilant and maintain all safety precautions to slow down the transmission rate.
He also urged citizens to follow official information as a reliable source.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan