Facebook posts shared thousands of times accuse authorities of lining the streets with empty body bags in a bid to fool people about the “fake” novel coronavirus pandemic.
This South African Facebook post shared more than 490 times since May 30, 2020, shows a row of what appear\xa0to be body bags, with a passer-by carrying one of the bags with one hand., “Strong people these health workers for Covid 19... they carry the dead bodies with one hand (sic),” the post reads., We’ve also archived other English-language\xa0posts\xa0here and here., Similar claims have been circulating in Spanish, Portuguese and Polish, including this post shared more than 4,000 times, as AFP Fact Check Argentina reported., A reverse image search of the picture in Google reveals the same picture in this Spanish article, published on May 28, 2020 and attributed to photographer Cristóbal Herrera. “Activists hold a symbolic funeral to protest the reopening of the economy in Florida”, the photo caption reads., AFP Fact Check ran a Google keyword search\xa0for “Cristóbal Herrera Florida” and traced his original photograph\xa0to the website of the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on May 27, 2020, at Torch of Friendship Park in Miami., “An activist carries bags, representing dead bodies during a symbolic funeral to protest against the economy reopening without Coronavirus relief in the Torch of Friendship Park, in Downtown Miami, Florida, USA, 27 May 2020,” the caption reads., As echoed in this photograph by AFP, the protest was held to honour the lives lost in the novel coronavirus pandemic and to hold Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and US President Donald Trump accountable for their handling of the health crisis., Similar staged funeral protests were held elsewhere in the US, including Tampa, Florida, Georgia and Washington, DC., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Empty body bags were used in protests and not part of ‘fake’ pandemic plot | AFP Fact Check