HMPV virus speculations infect social media

Guardian Nigeria

Transcript

00:00Up next, it's time for Truth or Fake.

00:07Catalina Marchand-Abreu is here in studio. Catalina, in today's edition, the HMPV virus

00:14outbreak in northern China. Some users are claiming that a new lockdown is upon us. Tell

00:19us more about what they're saying. That's right, Sharon. A surge in cases of the flu-like human

00:25pneumovirus, also known as HMPV in China, has raised fears of another COVID-style pandemic.

00:32According to this Chinese CDC statement, actually since last December, cases of HMPV

00:39amongst people under 14 years old, especially in northern China provinces, were trending upwards.

00:46The talk of this virus is shaking up social networks with talks of states of emergency,

00:51lockdowns, mortality rates. Let's take a look at some of these alarmist claims going around,

00:56starting with the local situation in China, where this post from January 7th, this user says,

01:03schools in China close as HMPV infections surge, where we see in the photo added the similar scenes

01:10from the ones we lived throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, while users also claim that a state

01:16of emergency has been declared in China as the epidemic overwhelms hospitals and crematoriums

01:23with a mix of multiple viruses spreading rapidly across the country. Then other users also say that

01:30the mortality rate of this virus reached a staggering 43 percent. As this user says,

01:38pandemic 2.0 has begun, as it seems more than we found at least more than 50 accounts on TikTok

01:45that have been posting a more alarmist content. For instance, this one, a warning of an alleged

01:50lockdown that will take place here in France following announcements from President Emmanuel

01:54Macron, content also vaguely citing official sources in China and Europe without naming them

02:00explicitly, as the same claims have also been made in English in TikTok following the threat

02:06of the spread of this, what they call a new virus. Take us through some of the details then Catalina,

02:12have you been able to debunk these claims? Well, let's begin with this image of emergency workers,

02:21we conducted a reverse image search and we found that this photo was actually taken

02:26by AFP journalists, it was taken in 2022 in Beijing during the actual COVID-19 pandemic,

02:33so already a photo that has been miscaptioned on social media to alarm users about the current

02:38situation in China where no state of emergency has been declared so far. The World Health

02:46Organization issued a press release on January 7th saying that Chinese authorities report that

02:53their health care system is not overwhelmed per these claims that we just saw, that there has

02:58been no emergency declarations or responses triggered by the surge of this virus. There has

03:04also been no official statement from French President Emmanuel Macron or other world leaders

03:10declaring an upcoming lockdown due to the spread of this virus and we actually found that a large

03:16portion of the TikTok videos and content like this one come from, for example, parody accounts on

03:23TikTok, for example this one called Pnews that describes itself even as the source of disinformation

03:30on their caption with extremely viral videos like the one we just saw. Here's another example

03:36of another lockdown, fake lockdown video of HMPV virus as social media has been fueling

03:42these fears of a new pandemic with the surge of this virus in northern China. Finally then

03:48Catalina, tell us a little bit more about the virus itself, mortality rates, how it spreads,

03:53how to prevent it from spreading. We'll begin by debunking these claims about the virus that

03:59reaches a 43% mortality rate. We found this figure in a study published in 2013 and while

04:06this study does reveal that this mortality rates of this virus at 100 days were 43%, this rate only

04:13concerns a specific population, this would be patients for example with leukemia, so there might

04:20be as usual a high mortality rate for very high risk groups like these but this mortality rate

04:26does not apply to the general population according to experts that we've interviewed.

04:31The HMPV virus is also nothing new contrary to lots of claims that we've been seeing online,

04:37it was actually discovered back in 2001 so it's been around humans for at least several decades

04:45giving us time to create these antibodies against the virus, a respiratory virus known to cause

04:52symptoms similar to colds and to flus such as fever, runny nose, coughing and that normally

04:58spreads faster during these winter months. Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization assures

05:04us that there's currently no abnormal increase in this virus not considered to be a health threat

05:11that would require exceptional measures such as a lockdown per the fake claims. For now

05:17there's actually no vaccine against this virus, experts advise simple preventative measures such

05:22as masks or sneezing into your elbow, washing your hands, measures that we learned throughout

05:27the COVID-19 pandemic as health officials in China have declared on a Sunday that the rate

05:34of the HMPV infections in northern China has decreased or declining amid this concern over

05:41a potential new pandemic. Catalina thanks for taking us through all of that, that's Catalina

05:47there with this evening's truth or fake. Well that's it from us for now, do stay with us though

05:51we'll be right back with more world news.

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