Fact Check - Is the WhatsApp video of body bags in a New York hospital true?

Claim: A Video has gone viral showing a massive number of body bags in New York hospital

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What is the rumour about?

• A viral clip that was circulating on WhatsApp showing a video where many rooms of the hospital were seen to be filled with body bags.

• The video stated that the clip was from a New York hospital. It shows a person who is in scrubs taking a video to show the number of body bags lying on the ground.

• The video was captioned stating “Situation in New York hospital...Full of dead bodies.. to all those who still haven't understood the lockdown importance.”

Image courtesy: WhatsApp 

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Who started the rumour?

• Social media forwards
• New York currently has over 72,181 positive COVID-19 cases and over 4000 deaths, according to the data by John Hopkins University. 
• This is the video that was being shared all over the internet talking about the situation in a New York hospital following deaths due to COVID-19. 

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Google Trends 

After an analysis of the Google Trends with respect to the WhatsApp video of the body bags in New York, one can see that the people have been hugely interested to know about this distressing news and the truth about it. The maximum number of searches have been done on April 3, 2020.

Image courtesy: Google Trends 

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Rating: False

Republic World did a fact check on the "body bags in New York" rumour

• Republic World did a fact check on the "body bags in New York video" and found the claims to be False. 
• A Twitter user mentioned on April 1 that the video was actually of Ecuador and not NYC.
• His claims seem to be substantial as according to a daily, the Ecuadorian officials had mentioned on March 30 that they were trying to improve the collection of corpses (affected with COVID-19) as many families were reported to keep the bodies' of their loved ones at their homes since many days. 

Image courtesy: Twitter

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• According to one Spanish website, the video was claimed to have been shot at a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The Spanish website had posted an article stating that the same video was spreading in Spain claiming to be from a Madrid hospital. 
• When one Twitter user tagged a New York hospital asking whether the video was theirs, the hospital tweeted saying that it is not from their hospital. 

Image courtesy: Twitter

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