Health Secretary Francis Duque blamed the fake news on the novel coronavirus, which resulted to funeral parlors backing out on cremating the Chinese national who tested positive of the virus.
In an interview ABS-CBN News, Duque said that two funeral parlors agreed with the cremation but later on backed out because of fear.
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“There is no basis other than what they see on their social media feed. What they consider is true is what they read on social media,” Duque said.
The funeral parlors also said that their image and business may be affected because of the novel coronavirus.
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Duque lamented that the DOH already has difficult jobs and that fighting false information makes the job more difficult.
“We are asking our journalists, reporters to be instruments of evidence-based reports so that if we repeatedly do this, we can at least convince our countrymen to not believe in fake news,” Duque added
