MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. The Russian General Prosecutor’s Office has found on the Internet unreliable information about the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, its Spokesman Andrey Ivanov told journalists on Wednesday.
"Monitoring and analysis of Internet resources has established inaccurate socially important information about the spread of the coronavirus infection across our country and about tens of thousands of sick people. Since these reports create a menace for public peace and security, a request to restrict access to them was submitted to Roskomnadzor," he said.
Earlier reports said that Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor will restrict access to online resources circulating fake news about the spread of the coronavirus.
"Roskomnadzor has received a request from the Prosecutor General’s Office, which contains a number of links to posts on social media, including the VKontakte and Facebook networks, related to the spread of the novel coronavirus," the statement read. The media watchdog pointed out that work was underway to restrict access to such websites and include the relevant links in a register of illegal content. In addition, notifications have been sent to website owners and hosting providers.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with cabinet members that bogus stories about the scope of the coronavirus spread in the country were mostly coming from overseas though nothing extraordinary was actually happening. According to Putin, "these bogus stories are clearly aimed at sowing panic," and authorities need to provide reliable information to the country’s people in order to thwart such attempts.
Coronavirus outbreak
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Coronavirus cases have also been reported in more than 70 countries, including Russia.
About 80,000 cases have been identified in China, with nearly 3,000 dead, while about 50,000 patients have recovered from the virus.