A Facebook page that’s barely a week old has been passing off a 2013 photo of rows of coffins as that of casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
Italy has overtaken China’s death toll, becoming the country hardest hit by SARS-CoV-2.
Infographix, which was created on March 12 and identifies itself as an IT company in Angeles City, posted the photo March 19 with the following text:
All in one day😭 https://bit.ly/2UqtKIq #CORONAVIRUS is real. See what happened in Italy. All these died in one day. Remember them in your prayers
The URL in the text leads to Lazada, a popular international online shopping site.
The photo was also posted by Facebook page DDS New York nearly 12 hours later with the following text overlaid on it:
In case you're still not convinced to stay home for your and ur beloved ones...Here's a picture from Italy.
A reverse search of the photo yields various news sites that published the Oct. 5, 2013 photo Alberto Pizzoli of Agence France Presse took of coffins of African asylum seekers who died two days earlier when their Italy-bound ship sank off the Italian island Lampedusa. More than 360 died in the shipwreck, according to news accounts.
Lampedusa is more than 1,000 kilometers from Lombardy, the region in Italy worst-hit by the pandemic.
The caption provided by Getty Images, which has Pizzoli’s photo in its library, reads:
Coffin of victims are seen in an hangar of Lampedusa airport on October 5, 2013 after a boat with migrants sank killing more than hundred people. Italy mourned today the 300 African asylum-seekers feared dead in the worst ever Mediterranean refugee disaster, as the government appealed for Europe to stem the influx of migrants. Italian emergency services hoped to resume the search for bodies on October 5, 2013 despite rough seas after the accident, in which 111 African asylum-seekers are confirmed dead and around 200 more are still missing. (Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images)
Italy enforced a nationwide lockdown March 9 to stem the growing COVID-19 cases. The number of cases climbed to 41,035 and deaths to 3,407 as of March 20, exceeding the 3,253 death toll in China, where the outbreak began.
DDS New York's post had 760 likes and 991 shares. Created in 2017, the page has 115,671 followers.
References
DDS New York. (2020, March 19). Parang pelikula lang. Lord heal our land [Facebook status update.] Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/DDSNewYorkOfficial/posts/1871965756269249
Jackson, J. (2013, December 5). 2013 Pictures of the Year. The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2013/12/2013-the-year-in-pictures/2013-pictures-of-the-year-201/
Getty Images. (2013, October 5). More than 360 lives died in the shipwreck, according to news accounts. Retrieved from https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/coffin-of-victims-are-seen-in-an-hangar-of-lampedusa-news-photo/183156592
Infographix. (2020, March 19). All in one day😭 https://bit.ly/2UqtKIq #CORONAVIRUS is real. See what happened in Italy. All these died in one day. Remember them in your prayers [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/103013697996534/photos/a.103606817937222/110663333898237/?type=3&theater
Lampedusa boat tragedy: Migrants 'raped and tortured.' (2013, November 8). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24866338
Ye, M. (2014, November 2014). Lampedusa shipwreck: From the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/3594604/lampedusa-shipwreck-from-the-depths-of-the-mediterranean-sea/