At a glance

• Claim: A photo shows a COVID-19-positive five-year-old girl going to the Philippine General Hospital alone.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: A reverse image search shows that the photo was taken in Vietnam.
• Why we fact-checked this: The photo has been circulating on social media. As of writing, it has been shared over 41,000 times and has garnered more than 49,000 reactions and 13 comments. Facebook flagged the photo for verification.

Complete details

A post circulating on social media falsely claims that a photo shows a five-year-old girl boarding an ambulance on her own to go to the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) because sihe is COVID-19 positive.

The photo was uploaded on August 12. As of writing, it has been shared over 41,000 times and has garnered more than 49,000 reactions and 13 comments. Facebook flagged the photo for verification.

This is false. 

A reverse image search shows that the photo was not taken in the Philippines but in Binh Chanh, an urban district in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

The photo was first published on June 25, 2021, in both the website and Facebook page of The Smart Local Vietnam, a news and media website. 

According to The Smart Local Vietnam, the little girl was on her way to the Trung Vuong Hospital after her parents tested positive for COVID-19. The girl then stayed with her grandmother, who later also got the virus.

Kids getting COVID-19 is a growing concern amid the threat of the more contagious Delta variant.

PGH spokesperson Dr. Jonas del Rosario said in an interview on TeleRadyo on Sunday, August 15, that the hospital’s intensive care unit for kids was filling up, with 8 out of 12 beds filled as of Sunday. (READ: PGH stops accepting non-COVID patients as admissions hit record-high)

In Bacolod and Iloilo, more children are also reported to be testing positive for COVID-19. – JD Moncada/Rappler.com

JD Moncada is a graduate of Rappler’s fact-checking mentorship program, a five-week exclusive and hands-on training on detecting, investigating, and verifying online misinformation and disinformation.

Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.