A post circulating on social media claims that three COVID patients in Australia, whose testimonies were shared in the media, were actually found to be actors. However, this is false information: the same program they use as a source belies that version and there is no evidence that they are actors.
“Scandalous: It is discovered that several patients hospitalized by the virus, who told dramatic stories and who asked everyone to get vaccinated, are actually actors,” says the headline of the post that, according to the CrowdTangle extension, has been shared 686 times on Facebook and accumulates 5,322 reactions on Twitter.
The post contains a video featuring a man introducing himself as Paul Barry of the Media Watch program. The recording shows cuts from the videos of the three COVID patients, identified as Ramona El-Nachar, Fawaz Dandan and Osama Ahmad, who are calling for vaccination against the virus.
Read more: Which countries are vaccinating children against COVID-19, why and which are those in Latin America
Then, in the video they appear accusations from users of social networks that suggested that it was a montage, as they allegedly found that they were actors or that they were not hospitalized at Concord Hospital.
“The big problem is all those people who, in exchange for money, collaborate in criminal acts like these. We find it even incredible that there can be people like that,” the post concludes with disinformation.
However, when we Googled ABC’s ‘Media Watch’ program, we found that the original video was cropped and the part of the video in which Paul Barry denies, with evidence, that COVID patients are paid actors.
Find out: US judge orders suspension of return of migrants to Mexico due to COVID measures
After mentioning users who questioned the veracity of the testimonies, Barry notes: “Is Ramona a crisis actress, pretending to have COVID for New South Wales Health? No, of course not.”
“As New South Wales Health clarified, the patient’s name is not Ramona Khoury, but Ramona El-Nachar, who is a pharmacy worker and, as you can see, they are two different people,” the presenter mentions, along with images of the two women.
On another of the patients, “they are not crisis actors either,” he adds.
You may be interested: COVID cases in pregnant women grow 61% in a month; deaths nearly triple
In this regard, a video of the comedian Mitch Garling, who is supposedly a crisis actor named Osama Ahmed, is shown, in which he denies having participated in the montage.
“People are using my photograph and my StarNow profile to say I’m an actor sitting in a hospital pretending to have COVID. I’m an actor but I don’t pretend to have COVID, it doesn’t even look like me.”
In addition, a fragment of the statement that Dr. Teresa Anderson, director of the local health district of Sydney, is presented, in which she confirms that they are COVID patients and criticizes the misinformation around their testimonies.
In conclusion: It is false that the Media Watch program has discovered a montage of COVID patients in Australia, the video is cropped and actually shows that there is no evidence that they are crisis actors.
What we do at Animal Político requires professional journalists, teamwork, dialogue with readers and something very important: independence. You can help us keep going. Be part of the team.
Subscribe to Animal Político, receive benefits and support free journalism.#YoSoyAnimal
