Does the little girl in a viral photo asking for prayers have coronavirus? No, that's not true. A photograph of a little girl with a tube in her nose holding a sign asking for prayers with the caption that she has coronavirus is fake -- it has been photoshopped and she is actually celebrating her last day of chemotherapy and not asking for prayers because she has COVID-19.
The claim reappeared as a post (archived here) where it was published by Facebook on May 2, 2020. It opened:
Please Just give me a minute of your time, help share in 4 groups let's make a prayer chain, It has no cost just share thanks. I don't mean to disturb. Just help share so my baby can get more prayers.
3 YEARs OLD GIRL' NEED CHAIN PRAYER 🙏🙏😢😭 He have Coronavirus.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
This photo is old. The little girl in the picture does not have coronavirus and the writing on the sign she is holding has been changed from the original, which celebrated her last day of chemotherapy.
The Facebook photo asking for prayers for a little girl who has coronavirus has over 10,000 shares.
Another poster on Facebook, archived here, had 72,000 shares before the post was removed. But it has surfaced again and is still viral at the time of writing.
The sign the girl is holding in the Facebook post reads: "Nobody wants to pray for me :( please like my photo and pray." Thousands of commenters posted that they would be praying for the child with coronavirus.
India Today's Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) reported that the photo of the little girl is fake and that she does not have coronavirus.
This is the faked photo:
The photo has been online since 2019 and it shows a little girl holding a colorful sign that actually read: "It's my last day of chemo."
The is the picture that went viral and was listed by Trending.com as the #26 on the Trending Top 100 list in 2019.
From Trending.com:
"It's great to see so many others taking chemo for her last time, now that she's able to live a healthy life again, it's a joy." was added to the Trending Top 100 list on September 01, 2019 from Reddit at rank #26. On September 01, 2019 this post peaked at #26 on Trending Top 100. This post also reached it's highest position at #7 on Trending.com's Top 25 Reddit list on September 01, 2019. Check back to see if "It's great to see so many others taking chemo for her last time, now that she's able to live a healthy life again, it's a joy." from Reddit reappears as a top post on Trending.com
Here is the post on Reddit in the "Made Me Smile" section with the original photo of the little girl with her cheerful sign about her last day of chemo.
