COVID-19 Fact Checks

FALSE: Photo of Japanese officials bowing down to COVID-19 frontliners

Rappler.com

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FALSE: Photo of Japanese officials bowing down to COVID-19 frontliners
The photo was taken in China in 2011 – way before the first case of COVID-19 was recorded
Claim:

A photo that circulated on Facebook showed Japanese government officials bowing down to their frontliners who have been working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The text below the photo reads, “Government dignitaries paying their respects to people working behind the scene to keep Japan safe from Covid19.”

At least 13 posts containing the graphic were flagged by Claim Check, Facebook’s monitoring tool. A reader also emailed the post to Rappler for verification.

The posts were shared as early as August 3.

Rating: FALSE
The facts:

The photo was taken in Zhejiang Province, China in 2011 – way before the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in December 2019. (READ: TIMELINE: The novel coronavirus pandemic)

A reverse image search showed that the photo was used by Hainan Daily’s online news service hinews.cn in an article published on January 5, 2011.

The report said that a company’s chairman and other officers, dressed in black suits, greeted their rank and file employees with a bow on January 3, 2011, the first working day of that year. The report did not identify the company but said it was located in Taizhou City.

In February, a supposed photo of a Japanese medical team sent to Wuhan, China to help out with COVID-19 also circulated on social media. Rappler debunked the claim because the photo was taken in 2008 when a medical team from Japan helped out in China after the Sichuan earthquake.

As of Monday, August 10, the global death toll due to COVID-19 reached 727,288. Nearly 20 million cases have also been registered worldwide. – Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com

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.

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