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.
Claim
Nepal government preparing to enforce a lockdown starting March 24 amid a resurge of coronavirus cases
Fact
An old news clip of coronavirus from December shared as recent
A video claiming that the government is preparing to enforce a lockdown from March 24 amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases in Nepal. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.TikTok user @pradipbasnet71 posted a video showing vehicles plying on a road. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Coronavirus cases have resurged in Nepal, preparations are being made to impose lockdown from March 24, and Nepal government has urged everyone to wear masks in public places.” Audio presented in a news bulletin-style says, “Corona infection cases are increasing again. According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 14 new cases tested positive of 858 tested in the past 24 hours. Now, active cases have reached 27, and 13,338 people received COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on March 12 has garnered 18.6k likes, 734 users have shared it and 204 people have commented on it until the time of publishing this article.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, we thoroughly checked the website and social media pages of Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population but didn’t find any notice about lockdown preparation in view of the increasing cases of COVID-19. We also checked the daily coronavirus updates posted on the verified social media pages of the Ministry and found that the highest number recorded in the month of March was nowhere close to what the viral video mentioned.
Then, we checked the original audio feature of TikTok video which led us to a short news clip of Nepal Times online posted on December 30, 2022. On checking the video, we found that the video was made by using a clip from Nepal Times daily bulletin named ‘Top 50 News Of The Day’. Taking a cue from this video, we checked the late December data on coronavirus status in Nepal on the Facebook page of the Health Ministry. On checking the data of December 29, we found that figures mentioned in the viral video exactly matched.
Further, we ran a search for the December 29 bulletin of ‘Top 50 News Of the Day’ on the YouTube Channel of Nepal Times and found a video whose 21 number news about the uptick in coronavirus cases was taken to make the TikTok video. On watching the news bulletin, the video from 4.46-minute onwards exactly matched the audio of the viral video. However, neither the viral audio nor the original video mentioned about the government preparations to impose lockdown in the immediate future.
Our findings indicate that the viral video was made by using an audio clip from December 29, 2022 and shared in a misleading manner.
Conclusion
No, the coronavirus cases are not rising in Nepal and the government authorities have not made plans or issued any notice to impose a lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and thus the viral claim is completely false.
Result: False
Sources
Ministry of Health and Population /Facebook, 29 December, 2022
Original Audio TikTok, 30 December, 2022
Nepal Times /YouTube, 29 December, 2022
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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.
