SINGAPORE: The office overseeing the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) has been instructed to issue a general correction notice to SPH Magazines over a post on HardwareZone Forum.

This came at the instruction of Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, the POFMA Office said in a media release on Monday (Jan 27).



“A false statement was made in a HardwareZone forum post, claiming that a man has died from the Wuhan coronavirus infection in Singapore. HardwareZone is required to carry the Correction Notice to all end-users in Singapore who use HardwareZone.com,” said the POFMA Office.

The post on HardwareZone Forum on Jan 26 at 5.50pm claimed that a man died from the Wuhan coronavirus infection in Singapore, the release said.

For the facts of the case, the POFMA Office referred to a Factually article which said there have been no deaths among the confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus infection as of 11pm on Jan 26.

SPH Magazines which operates HardwareZone Forum complied with the correction notice in a post on Monday which included a link to the Factually article.





Singapore has so far confirmed four cases of the SARS-like virus - the fourth announced early on Sunday morning.

Singapore's first case of the novel coronavirus was on Thursday, while two cases were confirmed on Friday.

In an update, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said there were no new confirmed cases of the Wuhan virus as of noon on Sunday, adding that it has been notified of 92 suspected cases in total.

Of the 92 suspected cases, 46 have tested negative for the new coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China. Test results for the remaining 42 cases are pending.

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