Original article (in Serbian) was published on 29/11/2021
A video recorded from the window of the building is circulating on social networks, showing a team with cameras and microphones following three medical workers on the street who are getting out of the ambulance and heading along the sidewalk, pushing the hospital wheelchair. “Everything is Hollywood,” a profile “Inforatnik” wrote on Twitter, alluding to the fact that the pandemic was staged, with which dozens of Twitter users who shared the video agreed. However, the truth is less dramatic.
The video was shared more than 50 times, and “Inforatnik” wrote the following:
“Let’s go for the news at 7. A new variant has arrived, everyone needs a third dose! Sound? Ready. Camera? Ready. Action! It’s all Hollywood,” claims the description of the tweet. “They are already laughing in our faces,” wrote another Twitter user. “They are filming a prepared scene in which medical workers are carrying someone who is allegedly dying of covid”. However, in the video, the wheelchair is empty, i.e., the “dying” patient is not lying on it.
It is unclear on what basis the users of the networks are convinced that this is “staging” the pandemic. This video, whose context is unclear, can show anything (shooting an advertisement, a movie scene, or something else), and a logical question is why such “staging” would take place in a public place, in front of citizens.
What does the scene show?
The oldest posts of this video on the networks that Raskrikavanje found originate from May this year, from Hungary. At the end of May, the video was published on Facebook by “Hitleten Magazin”, stating that it was a recording of “fake news and daily horrors”. The video has been viewed more than two million times.
A few days after this announcement, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted a promotional video on his social networks. He thanked many on behalf of the Hungarian people – doctors, educators, vendors, and others – for everything they did during the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the scenes in the promotional video shows three medical workers in white suits pushing a hospital cart on the sidewalk. It is an identical scene recorded by someone’s phone from the window while the recording was going on – it is only now shown from a different angle.
Apart from three doctors in white suits, black and yellow hospital wheelchairs, the same ambiance with greenery and damaged asphalt, some other details prove that this is the same thing. As can be seen by carefully comparing the two images, one of the medical workers has a red backpack (blue quadrangle in the picture), the doctor has a bag on his left shoulder (green ellipse), a wheelchair pillow (orange ellipse) has a specific shape, there is a puddle next to which the doctors pass (red ellipse), and the gate (yellow square) is identical.
In the following days, readers posted links to Orban’s video in the comments under the fake news spread by Hitleten Magazin, warning that it was a hoax. In the meantime, the Hungarian website alfahir.hu also wrote about it, but the video was not deleted.
This is not the first time such fake news has been spread, and Raskrikavanje wrote about a similar one in March this year. The video showed doctors filming a promo video for an Israeli hospital, and people also claimed that it was about staging the coronavirus pandemic.