Does video from China show people "feeling the heat" of the Wuhan coronavirus as they try to escape the quarantine? No, that's not true: The video is actually from an anti-government protest and was posted on December 18, 2019, well before authorities put a quarantine into effect in Wuhan, China, and other cities in Hubei province.
The claim originated from a tweet published by C-Store News on February 4, 2020, (archived here). It opened:
"Video from China shows People feeling the heat of the #Coronavirus, people trying to escape the quarantine zone. #Wuhan #CSCEC #China #coronavirus. , #冠狀病毒, #וירוס, #코로나바이러스, #コロナウイルス, #коронавирус, https://t.co/zdQiBnyzcC"
Users on social media only saw this:
C-Store News on Twitter
"Video from China shows People feeling the heat of the #Coronavirus, people trying to escape the quarantine zone. #Wuhan #CSCEC #China #coronavirus. , #冠狀病毒, #וירוס, #코로나바이러스, #コロナウイルス, #коронавирус, https://t.co/zdQiBnyzcC"
The Twitter user claimed the video, which showed a fiery protest, was of people trying to escape the coronavirus quarantine zones in China. In actuality, the same video was posted on December 18, 2019, and purportedly showed an anti-government protest in Maoming, China. Like Hong Kong, the city in Guangdong province has been the site of clashes between police and residents.
The video (here and here) was posted well before authorities in China imposed a lockdown on more than a dozen cities in Hubei province to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, which as of February 4, 2020, has killed more than 420 people, according to The New York Times.
We wrote about other recent fake news concerning coronavirus:
