Outdated clips from protest, music video misrepresented amid hantavirus outbreak
- Published on May 13, 2026 at 23:01
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Conspiratorial social media posts have claimed so-called "crisis actors" were caught dressing in fake body bags to drum up panic over the hantavirus outbreak reported on a cruise ship in May 2026. But the clips spread online actually show footage from a Russian rapper's 2020 music video set and a television news broadcast about a 2022 climate protest in Austria; both videos have been frequently misrepresented, including during the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Same script, different virus. Media floods with 100k+ Hantavirus stories overnight while body bags had actors smoking on set. COVID was staged theatre," said a May 10, 2026 post sharing video of a man smoking a cigarette while laying in a heap of body bags.
"They're prepping the next panic. Wake up."
"We've seen this Hantavirus movie before," added another post. "They just called it Covid."
Similar claims spread in multiple languages across X and other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, as the deaths of three passengers from an outbreak of the rat-borne virus on the MV Hondius sparked international alarm.
A flurry of additional posts honed in on another video, which shows a person wiggling from inside one of several rows of body bags.
"Hantavirus victim magically comes back to life on live TV," one such publication said.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said May 12 that the "work is not over" to contain the virus after evacuations of the ocean liner's remaining passengers, though health officials have stressed that the global public health risk is low, rejecting comparisons to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The scare has still revived conspiracy theories about vaccines, alleged depopulation campaigns and miracle cures that flourished during the pandemic, with an AFP analysis finding widespread posts alleging a sinister plot to control the masses or sway the US midterm elections in November.
The conspiratorial claims that the clips show paid actors staging hantavirus fatalities are also false.
Both videos are unrelated to the outbreak -- and have been repeatedly misrepresented, including in regard to Covid and the casualties of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Music video shoot
The video of a man smoking while lying amid a pile of body bags in the bed of a dump truck shows behind-the-scenes footage from the filming of a music video for the Russian rapper Husky's September 2020 song "Never Ever" (archived here and here).
Vasya Ivanov, identified in the music video's credits as its production designer, posted the footage to TikTok on March 28, 2021, writing in the caption that it showed the shooting of content for Husky (archived here).
The clip also appears on Ivanov's Instagram page as part of an Instagram story highlight dedicated to the music video.
A scene from the music video shows the same dump truck and building facade as in Ivanov's behind-the-scenes shot.
AFP previously geolocated the clip to Moscow, further confirming it was filmed in Russia -- and not aboard the MV Hondius (archived here).
Climate protest
The second video, in which a person inside a body bag is seen moving during a television news broadcast, shows an Austrian media outlet's February 2022 coverage of a climate-related demonstration in front of the federal chancellery in the capital Vienna.
The original news report, from Oe24, carried a German-language chyron that reads (archived here): "Vienna: Demo against climate policy."
The report said the group Fridays For Future presented 49 activists in "climate body bags" to warn about Austria's failure to establish a greenhouse gas reduction target.
The group's Austrian branch announced the protest on its website and shared similar photos on social media (archived here and here).
Verena Matlschweiger, a spokeswoman for Fridays For Future Austria and co-organiser of the event, told AFP in 2022 that it was "solely about the climate crisis."
"The dead bodies are meant as a symbol, and do not hold an intention to show real corpses," she said.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the hantavirus outbreak here.
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