“They posted a hoax on their Facebook account that a Balikpapan resident has been diagnosed with coronavirus,” local police spokesperson Ade Yaya Suryana told AFP on Tuesday. Indonesia’s communications ministry has warned that it has spotted at least 50 online hoaxes about the virus recently. The Southeast Asian archipelago has one of the world’s biggest internet audiences, with some 130 million people online. At the weekend, more than 230 Indonesians arrived home after Jakarta received Beijing’s go-ahead to repatriate its nationals living near the epicentre. The returnees will be isolated for 14 days at a hospital in Natuna, a cluster of islands bordering the South China Sea.

Source: The Express Tribune February 04, 2020 13:30 UTC