A post is being widely shared on social media claiming that the COVID-19 warning message was given by Dr. Leong Hoe Nam, a public health expert in Singapore. The post even claims that the information is from an interview given by the doctor in Mandarin. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: COVID-19 warning message by Dr. Leong Hoe Nam, taken from his interview in Mandarin.
Fact: The message was not given by Dr. Leong Hoe Nam. Dr. Leong Hoe Nam is an infectious diseases specialist from the Rophi Clinic at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore. Rophi Clinic, via Facebook, had confirmed that the information in the post is ‘fake news’. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We could not find any recent news articles which say that Dr. Leong Hoe Nam had given such a warning message about COVID-19. We also could not find any interview given in Mandarin by Dr. Leong Hoe Nam in relation to the message in the post.
Dr. Leong Hoe Nam is an infectious diseases specialist from the Rophi Clinic at Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore. He is frequently interviewed and sought for an opinion on various infectious diseases like COVID-19. Rophi Clinic, via Facebook, confirmed that the information in the post is ‘fake news’. Rophi Clinic even requests people to stop spreading such ‘damaging information’. “This is to state categorically that Dr. Leong has never said what was shared. There is a lot of false information.”
The symptoms of the delta variant are the same as the original version. Delta variant does not have different symptoms as claimed in the post. It is true that the Delta variant is more transmissible and deadly.
To sum it up, this COVID-19 message attributed to Dr. Leong Hoe Nam of Singapore is not true.
