This video shows workmen uncovering a bat-infested roof in the US state of Florida in 2011.
The three-minute four-second footage shows people lifting tiles off a roof, revealing\xa0dozens of bats under them., Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:, The post’s caption reads: “The corona virus source is found. It turns out that many roofs in Hubei China are covered with chrysanthemum bats, a type of bat.”, Novel coronavirus, a viral epidemic believed to have emerged from a wildlife market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, has killed at least 630 people and infected 31,000 others in China, as reported here by AFP on February 7, 2020., The video was also shared here, here, here on Facebook and here and here on Twitter alongside a similar claim., The\xa0claim is false; the video has circulated online since at least July 2011 and shows repairs being done on the roof of a bat-infested house in Miami, Florida, US., A reverse image search of keyframes extracted from the video in the misleading post found found\xa0this longer video published on the YouTube channel of the US-based roofing company Istueta Roofing on July 5, 2011., The video is titled: “Bat infestation under tile roof- Roofing Miami, Florida.”, "The video description states: “Our crew is in for a surprise when they begin the removal process of our clients old roof and hundreds of bats come flying out from underneath the tiles. This was unexpected!”", Below are screenshot comparisons of the video in the misleading Facebook post (L) and video on Istueta Roofing’s YouTube page (R):, The same video can also be found on the roofing company’s website here., During a phone conversation with AFP on February 6, 2020, a co-owner of Istueta Roofing, Ariel Istueta, said the video was taken in the US in 2011., “This is not from China, this is a video from 2011, when our former project manager Danny Argote went to replace a roof infested with bats in the Pinecrest locality in the suburbs of Miami in Florida,” he said., , , 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.
This video shows workmen uncovering a bat-infested roof in the US state of Florida in 2011 | AFP Fact Check