Published 12:55 IST, May 14th 2020
Fact Check: Has Indian Government shared '5-phase roadmap' to ease COVID-19 lockdown?
Fact Check: There has been a message circulating around that the Indian government has brought forward a five-phase roadmap to ease the COVID-19 restrictions.
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Lockdown 3.0 in India is currently nearing its end and hence there has been a lot of hubbub as to what would happen after the lockdown ends. The Prime Minister of India, PM Narendra Modi, informed that there will be a Lockdown 4.0 as well, though it would be different and details would be out by May 18. Since then, there have been a lot of messages and WhatsApp forwards that claim that the government has brought forward a roadmap to ease restrictions for COVID-19 - that it is set for 5 phases, and each phase has a 3-week review process.
Origin:
The message started circulating on WhatsApp. The message claims that the Government has a roadmap to ease restrictions that will set out in 5 phases. It claims that the phases are a three-week review process, and then the dates are given. At the end of the message, it is said that if the coronavirus will increase, the government will revert to the old restrictions.
The same message was shared on other social media portals as well. Many people took to Twitter to share the same message and inform the others of the same. Here are some of the tweets that have the same message:
@fordnation is this true ? Government's roadmap to ease Covid-19 restrictions will be set out in 5 phases. These phases will be on 3 week review process, the current phases would commence on the following dates:
— Lindsay Johnson (@LJ8709) May 6, 2020
Phase 1 - 18th May
Phase 2 - 8th June
Phase 3 - 29th June
Government's roadmap to ease Covid-19 restrictions will be set out in 5 phases. The phases will be on 3 week review process, the current phases would commence on the following dates:
— adam morris (@adamjmozzy25) May 8, 2020
Phase 1 - 18th May
Phase 2 - 8th June
Phase 3 - 29th June
Phase 4 - 20th July
Phase 5 - 10th Aug
THE TRUTH:
PIB Fact Check shared a picture of the same Whatsapp Forward on their Twitter account and released that it is fake and misleading information. The Fact Check claimed that this ‘roadmap’ was not made by the Indian government. It also claimed that the phases are of some other country’s roadmap.
Claim: A so-called 3-week, 5-phase "roadmap", purportedly made
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) May 12, 2020
by the Government, to ease #COVID19India restrictions is being circulated on Whatsapp.#PIBFactCheck: #Fake news.This roadmap is not made by our Government, but by that of some other country pic.twitter.com/20duABJP9V
A thing to note about all the tweets that were shared was that the users who posted them were not Indian citizens. Many UK residents used the same message to ask whether the Prime Minister of UK, Boris Johnson, has shared this or not. This has created a lot of confusion worldwide.
I’ve just seen Boris’s Government's roadmap to ease Covid-19 restrictions to be set out in 5 phases starting May 18. God help us
— DAVID LE GRYS (@LEGRO) May 8, 2020
The 5-phase government roadmap to ease COVID-19 restriction is given by the Irish Government
This 5-part phase to ease COVID-19 restrictions belongs to Ireland. The Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar along with his government brought forward this 5-phase plan to restart the country and bring it back to its original state. The same dates are being used by people in India and in the UK to claim that their government has brought forward this roadmap. The tweet below has the official press release of the Irish government and more information about the same. The tweet also claims that people are saying that the roadmap is for the Philippines as well.
FYI. This is Ireland's roadmap but it's been appearing in Viber making it appear it's PH >
— Noemi L. Dado (@momblogger) May 9, 2020
Government publishes roadmap to ease COVID-19 restrictions and reopen Ireland’s economy and societyhttps://t.co/Iw6vXTucXT #covid19 https://t.co/Iw6vXTucXT
Google Trends Analysis
Google Trends shows how people have been regularly looking at how the government is supposed to ease down the lockdown. One can see that the searches reached a peak on May 11 at 8.30 PM. Another hike was seen on May 14 at 12.30 PM:
12:55 IST, May 14th 2020