Coronavirus pandemic: Myanmar in lockdown, leader Aung San Suu Kyi creates personal Facebook account

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has made a personal account on Facebook. Suu Kyi, who keeps a low profile in public, writes in her first Facebook post that she wants to use social media to communicate with the public and other leaders in the country as Myanmar is currently under country-wide lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic. So far the country has reported 15 COVID-19 cases.

The Myanmar leader in her first Facebook post wrote, "I had no willingness to join Facebook at first." Her profile is genuine is indicated by the blue tick that appears next to her name, Reuters reported.

Incidentally, Facebook and Myanmar do not have a particularly great history. The website, quite popular in the country, had been often used to share fake news and xenophobic messages against Rohingya people. Facebook has come under repeated attacks for its inability to effectively contain hate messages shared through its website in Myanmar. The situation has been deemed so bad that even the United Nations cited Facebook for not doing enough to stop the abuse of its platform in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi in her first Facebook post wrote that it was only created to communicate with people under the current circumstances. "Under the current circumstances, it was created in order to communicate with people faster and more efficiently related to COVID-19 challenges", wrote Suu Kyi.

Within hours the post had received around 3,10,000 likes. Her account has since gained more than 7,00,000 followers and has been verified by Facebook, BBC in a report stated.

Suu Kyi is otherwise known to keep a low profile as far as press conferences or interviews are concerned. Suu Kyi, after gaining power, has mostly communicated with the public through formal statements.

The Myanmar leader was also recently seen washing hands in a video and urging people to do the same to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the Bangkok Post, the ministry of health in Myanmar gave out a warning saying that the country was at a very high risk of a "major outbreak" after tens of thousands of migrants working in neighboring Thailand rushed home before the border closed. So far, the country has experienced around 15 positive reported cases with one death