This image shows a scene from the trailer for 2011 disaster movie Contagion

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 26, 2020 at 07:15
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

A photo has been shared hundreds of times in multiple Chinese-language posts on Facebook and Twitter which claim it shows a mass burial ground for “virus victims”. The posts were published after the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, spread to dozens of countries after it was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. The claim is false; the image is a screenshot taken from the trailer of the 2011 movie Contagion.

This photo has been shared nearly 300 times after being posted to Facebook on February 25.

Part of the simplified Chinese-language caption translates to English as: “This is a mass burial ground for tens of thousands of virus victims. The cremation furnace running 24 hours a day cannot meet demand due to the large number of bodies.”

As of February 26, COVID-19 has killed more than 2,600 people and infected almost 80,000 others, mostly in China, according to this AFP report.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

The photo was also shared here, here, here and here on Facebook, and here on Twitter alongside an identical claim.

The claim is false; the photo is a screenshot taken from a 2011 movie trailer.

A Google reverse image search found this July 2011 YouTube video titled “Contagion Trailer - Contagion Movie Trailer”.

The photo in the misleading posts can be seen at the two-minute 17-second mark of the YouTube video.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo in the misleading posts (L) and a keyframe from the YouTube video (R):

Contagion is a 2011 movie starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Jude Law. Movie database IMDb describes the film as: "Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a worldwide epidemic as the CDC works to find a cure."

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