Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
With the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant BF.7 in neighbouring countries, Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Populations have advised the people to mask up, and maintain social distance in public places. Against this background, a 10-second news clip claiming that a fourth wave of COVID-19 has entered Nepal and the experts have warned that the new variant could be deadlier than the previous ones, is going viral on TikTok. Newschecker found the claim to be false.
TikTok user @worldinformation.offical posted a news clip video. The news bulletin is heard saying, “Representatives of trade unions and governments of South Asian countries held a discussion on the post Covid-19 employment situation.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Sad news, the fourth wave of corona virus has entered Nepal. Saying that the new wave of corona virus could lead to an even deadlier situation than the previous ones, health experts have recommended increasing security at borders.”
The video posted on November 27 has garnered 12.1k likes, 1475 shares, and 116 people have commented on it until the last count.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker searched for news regarding discussion among representatives of trade unions and South Asian countries regarding the post-Covid-19 work situation by using relevant keywords. The search led us to a news article titled ‘Trade unions, govt reps discuss employment situation, post-Covid challenges in SAARC region’ published on b360nepal.com. The content of news article published on November 27 matched the news bulletin.
We also noticed a logo of News24 Television on the top-left corner of the screen. Taking it as a clue, we conducted a search on the YouTube Channel of the television channel and thoroughly searched the new bulletin videos matching the viral clip. On checking a video titled ‘Afternoon News Fatafat’ published on Nov 27, we found that the footage and audio clip from the 0.42-minute timestamp exactly matched the viral news video.
Further, we checked the Facebook page of Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population and found the latest data showing eight new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Nepal on Tuesday (December 27). However, the ministry has not confirmed that a new variant of coronavirus has been detected in Nepal until the time of publishing this article.
Our findings clearly indicated that an old video falsely shared claiming that a new variant of coronavirus has entered Nepal.
Conclusion
The viral news clip claiming that a fourth wave of coronavirus has entered Nepal is false as Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population has not yet confirmed the emergence of a new variant of coronavirus in Nepal.
Result : False
Sources
News24
Business360
Ministry of Health and Population /Facebook
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
