Chances are your panicked friends or family members may have forwarded you an audio message claiming the second wave of COVID-19 in India is because of the 5G mobile towers testing.
However, this is just another conspiracy theory. The telecom department said that there¡¯s absolutely no link between 5G technology and the spread of COVID-19 even as it urged the public ¡°not to be misguided by the false information and rumours spread in this matter.¡±
¡°The claims linking the 5G technology with the COVID-19 pandemic are false and have no scientific basis,¡± the department said in a statement, adding that the testing of the 5G network hasn¡¯t even started anywhere in India in the first place.
Mobile towers emit non-ionizing Radio frequencies, which have very minuscule power and are incapable of causing any kind of damage to living cells including human beings.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has prescribed norms for exposure limit for the Radio Frequency Field (i.e. Base Station Emissions) which are 10 times more stringent than the safe limits prescribed by International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and recommended by WHO, it added.
Users can also request for ambient electromagnetic fields (EMF) measurements on Tarang Sanchar portal if they have doubt if any mobile tower emits radio waves beyond the safe limit prescribed by the department.
Last week, the Telecom industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), representing Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi), had dismissed the unsubstantiated and unverified claims and called on people to fight ¡°this menace of misinformation¡±.
S P Kochhar, director general of COAI, said several countries have already rolled out 5G networks and that people are using these services safely.