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| - A video of a press conference where a European-based group of medical practitioners were seen discrediting the COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced on social media.
The video is being circulated on WhatsApp as ‘breaking news’ with the claim implying that the global doctors’ union recently held a public event on the Coronavirus.
The caption shared alongside the viral video reads:
“Breaking News. Presentation by the World Doctors Union on Covid-19. Pls share it among public to avoid panicky situation. Forwarded as received.”
The 3:21 minute clip shows how the group of medical practitioners was equating Covid-19 with flu virus.
One of the said doctors, who identified herself as the President of the World Doctors Alliance, said that Covid-19 is a seasonal viral infection.
“We are here to say that there is good news. The coronavirus is a seasonal virus that causes illness and symptoms from December to April.
“There is no need for lock-down, there is no need for fear, there is no need for mask, for social distancing, or for quarantining people. They are locking people in their homes for last year flu,” parts of her statement read.
Towards the end of the clip, a male member of the group claimed that there was no evidence of a medical pandemic.
“We see no evidence of a medical pandemic. So, it looks like a plandemic. And we all together say we don’t want this new normal,” he opined.
CLAIM
World Doctors Union meet and held a conference on the COVID-19 pandemic recently.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
Our researcher traced the footage to the ACU2020 website, where the full and original version of the video was found.
ACU2020 is a German acronym used by a group headed by a German physician, Heiko Schöning.
The footage, uploaded on November 13, 2020, was titled “official video of the founding of the WDA- World Doctors Alliance”. It was tagged “A better normal, not a new normal.”
This shows that the resurfaced footage has been on the internet since 2020, during the ‘pandemic year.’
Further checks revealed that various claims made by the group on Covid-19 pandemic in the video have been debunked by several credible fact-checking organisations and media platforms including the Associated Press, Voice of America, The Guardian, and FactCheck.org etc. Other debunks on the footage can also be seen here, here, and here.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the World Doctors Union recently held a conference on the Covid-19 pandemic is FALSE; findings show that the viral footage is an old video from over two years ago.
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