An ap­peal is be­ing made to mem­bers of the pub­lic to de­sist from spread­ing ru­mours on so­cial me­dia about the coun­try’s fifth COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ty Vic­tor Mooti­ram and his fam­i­ly. A close friend of the fam­i­ly, us­ing her Face­book name Abbey KC, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that sev­er­al false What­sApp voice notes have been caus­ing Mooti­ram’s fam­i­ly more grief and stress dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.

“Please stop. This is re­al­ly af­fect­ing his fam­i­ly, “ she plead­ed.

De­bunk­ing some of the er­ro­neous in­for­ma­tion be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed, she said Mooti­ram’s fam­i­ly is cur­rent­ly in self-quar­an­tine at their Garth Road, Williamsville home and not ward­ed at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal. They have been test­ed and are await­ing re­sults.

“None of them are sick at this time. It is not true that his daugh­ter died be­cause he does not have a daugh­ter. They are say­ing that a dou­bles ven­dor is sick and is in the hos­pi­tal, that is al­so not true. He is at his home,” she said.

Mooti­ram, she added, did at­tend a rel­a­tive’s fu­ner­al at the be­gin­ning of March but none of the oth­er rel­a­tives who at­tend­ed are ill.

Abbey KC said an­oth­er false claim is that he had a par­ty with about 200 guests at his home. She said a few days be­fore Mooti­ram’s rel­a­tive died, she cel­e­brat­ed her birth­day at the end of Feb­ru­ary with rel­a­tives from abroad, but he did not at­tend and the cel­e­bra­tion was not held at his home.

“It is still a mys­tery how he con­tract­ed the virus.”

She said two weeks be­fore he died he had a run­ny nose and a slight cough which did not last, but he had body pains and was weak.

“He did not have the symp­toms of COVID-19 but two weeks lat­er when he got to the point that he was so weak he could not lift him­self, they took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. It’s on­ly when he got there they found out he was pos­i­tive. He was ad­mit­ted on Mon­day and with­in 24 hours he died,” she said.

Mooti­ram, she added, was a mem­ber of the Garth Road Open Bible Church and was well-loved in the com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, she said since at­tend­ing the last ser­vice on March 15 be­fore the church was closed as a re­sult of COVID-19 pre­cau­tions, he re­mained at home.

“It is al­so not true that there were mem­bers of the army, po­lice and health of­fi­cials in the com­mu­ni­ty af­ter he died. Please be com­pas­sion­ate and think about the pain you are caus­ing his fam­i­ly by these false ru­mours,” Abbey KC ap­pealed.

One of the voice notes al­so claimed that But­ter­flake Bak­ery, which is lo­cat­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty, was shut down be­cause Mooti­ram was in the store two or three times pri­or to his death. That claim, ac­cord­ing to a health of­fi­cial, is to­tal­ly false. The of­fi­cial said the man­age­ment took a de­ci­sion to close the bak­ery based on a rec­om­men­da­tion from health of­fi­cials due to the fail­ure of some cus­tomers to prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing and oth­er COVID-19 pre­cau­tions. In a let­ter to em­ploy­ees dat­ed April 3, CEO Hen­ry Sub­ra­tee stat­ed that they were in­struct­ed by the health au­thor­i­ty to cease op­er­a­tions. Re-open­ing of busi­ness, he said, will de­pend on the sever­i­ty of the virus and health of­fi­cials. Ex­press­ing con­do­lences to the Mooti­ram fam­i­ly, Sub­ra­tee urged them not to join with ir­re­spon­si­ble so­cial me­dia users to “dis­sem­i­nate in­for­ma­tion which are in­ac­cu­rate and un­found­ed.”

As in­struct­ed by the chief pub­lic health in­spec­tor, the health of­fi­cial said they have been vis­it­ing all es­sen­tial busi­ness­es which are open at this time to en­sure that they and their cus­tomers are fol­low­ing prop­er guide­lines and rec­om­men­da­tions to curb the spread of the virus.