Bigger problems than a virus

No matter how horrible things get in the West, it's going to be tough to beat this:

Turkmenistan has banned the use of the word 'coronavirus' and threatened to arrest people wearing face masks, a watchdog has said. Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders said anyone talking about the coronavirus is liable to be arrested by plainclothes police in the country.

A Turkmen radio station claims that special agents have been eavesdropping on people in buses and public places to find people talking about the contagion.

Pakistan has serious competition for the title of King of the Trash-can-istans.

Update
Reporters Without Borders provided this bizarre update on April 2:

ERRATUM - A previous version of this article, posted on the RSF site on 31 March, unfortunately was based on an error. Contrary to what we initially reported, the term “coronavirus” was not as such censored in the Turkmen media. We apologize to our readers for this mistake, which was corrected as quickly as possible.

Comments

[Tambi_Dude]

oh c'mon check the date of the article.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Global News article from Canada on March 31:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6757642/coronavirus-word-banned-turkmenistan/

Reporters Without Borders article from March 31 with a very important update on April 2:
https://rsf.org/en/news/coronavirus-limits-turkmenistan

I don't think it was meant as a joke. More a case of, er, fake news!