The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has termed a report on Lockdown 5.0 as ‘fake news’. India Today in a report on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make the announcement on the lockdown during his radio program, Mann Ki Baat.

According to the report, during his address to the nation in the program, Modi is likely to speak on the “next phase of lockdown from June 1 that may come into force after Lockdown 4.0 ends on May 31”. The report quoted home ministry sources as saying: “Lockdown 5.0 will mainly focus on 11 cities with 70 percent of the total coronavirus cases in India”.

However, the MHA spokesperson in a tweet termed the claims as “mere speculations by the reporter” and said attributing them to the MHA is “incorrect”.

“The quoted story claims to have inside details about #Lockdown5, from MHA Sources,” the MHA spokesperson tweeted. “All claims made therein are mere speculations by the reporter. To attribute them to MHA is incorrect and being irresponsible,” the spokesperson added.

A news daily recently took to its social media platform and shared that the guidelines circulating on the internet about the phase 5 of the Maharashtra lock are actually fake. The guidelines were designed in a way that made it look genuine. The fake guidelines spread included rules and regulations shops, public spaces, and salons/beauty parlors would have to follow during lockdown phase 5.

Meanwhile, the number of daily coronavirus cases in India hit a new high as the states had registered over 7,000 coronavirus cases for the first since the outbreak. With this highest spike in daily COVID-19 count, the total number of coronavirus patients in India crossed the grim-milestone of 1.65 lakh.

Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu continued to record a high number of COVID-19 case. Several other states — Delhi, West Bengal, Haryana, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh also reported a high number of COVID-19 cases.

Globally, the COVID-19 has affected over 59 lakh people and at least 3.62 lakh people have died so far from the deadly disease.