False: Chinese President Celebrates Maskless

Ahmed Balousha

News

29th May 2020

False: Chinese President Celebrates Maskless

President’s widespread picture not wearing a facemask is old(GettyImages)

The Claim

The Chinese President celebrated zero COVID cases in Wuhan without wearing a facemask.

News posted on

Al Naqed Press

Emerging story

A picture of the Chinese president Xi Jinping not wearing a face mask has been circulating on social media. Users claim that the image shows Jinping celebrating victory over the coronavirus.

AlNaqadpress.net published an article claiming that a maskless Jinping announced the victory of China as it defeated COVID-19.

Twitter user Waleed Hafez tweeted the picture and wrote “The meaning of success” as a caption for the picture.

MasrAlArabia, a verified user on YouTube with 420K subscribers, published a video on their channel claiming that China contained the pandemic and the doctors are dancing.

Their website also published that the Chinese president appeared without a face mask in eight hospitals in Wuhan, announcing to the world that the hospitals in Wuhan are “Corona free” and that COVID-19 is under control.

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s reverse image search proves that the picture of the Chinese president’s visit to Wuhan is accurate. However, the president’s widespread maskless picture is old and has been published on the official Chinese News Agency (Xinhua) website since October 2018. The Chinese president’s recent visit to Wuhan was on March 10, 2020, and he did wear a facemask then.