At this crucial period of society's fight against a pandemic, a handful have capitalized on the ignorance and cultural bias of a vast majority of Indians, to spread extreme misinformation about the virus, in line with the "Janata curfew" issued by the government.

These forwards are using wildly twisted facts and religious sentiments to suggest that the state of the Corona pandemic has improved around the country.

Such casual distribution of misinformation will increase the percentage of people who will likely break protocol at such a crucial time, while putting our entire society at health risk.

WhatsApp needs do more than just "chat-bots", and do it quickly.

They need to flag the messages instantly, right in the chat window and explain the gravity of the situation to people as and when they encounter such forwards in their chats. They must do all they can within privacy/encryption guidelines to track the block of text and flag it anywhere possible.

This is the least they must do, if not eliminating the messages themselves in order to protect a nation from such a primal threat.