Barack Obama tests positive for COVID-19, says he's 'feeling fine'
Washington, Mar 14: Former US President Barack Obama has said he tested positive for the coronavirus, though he's feeling relatively healthy and his wife, Michelle, tested negative.
I've had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise, Obama said on Twitter on Sunday. Michelle and I are grateful to be vaccinated and boosted.
Obama encouraged more Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite the declining infection rate in the US. There were roughly 35,000 infections on average over the past week, down sharply from mid-January when that average was closer to 8,00,000.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 75.2 per cent of US adults are fully vaccinated and 47.7 per cent of the fully vaccinated have received a booster shot.
The CDC relaxed its guidelines for indoor masking in late February, taking a more holistic approach that meant the vast majority of Americans live in areas without the recommendation for indoor masking in public.
I just tested positive for COVID. I’ve had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise. Michelle and I are grateful to be vaccinated and boosted, and she has tested negative.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 13, 2022
It’s a reminder to get vaccinated if you haven’t already, even as cases go down.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
