Neither did the father request for prayers nor did his kid have corona virus
An image of a man hugging his child, who was wrapped in clear plastic went viral on social media especially Facebook. The child is claimed to have corona virus symptoms, while the father is requesting everyone to pray for her as shes awaiting the test results. It is also claimed that her mother died while giving birth to her.
The caption with the photo said, “Please pray. A prayer request.
Please pray for my daughter she has symptoms of corona virus but we are not sure if she is positive because her test result isn’t out yet. Her mother died while giving birth to her, I don’t want to lose her too,please help me share to even if 5 Facebook group and pray not to be tested positive, I believe your prayers can make a difference, don’t ignore usðŸ˜(God bless you as u share).”
A Facebook profile name Baiju S shared the image with the caption that garnered around 5.7K comments and 9.7K shares.
The post with similar narrative was also shared in Twitter.
Please pray
A prayer requestPlease pray for my daughter she has symptoms of corona virus but we are not sure if she is positive because her test result isn't out yet. Her mother died while giving birth to her, I don't want to lose her too, please help me share to even if 5 pic.twitter.com/TZui9SOuCG
— Soumya_nairs9069 (@nairs9069) April 23, 2020
Truth
The claim is FALSE. This image is from Malaysia. The image was also posted by a verified Instagram account called ndorobeii. The translation in the caption of the post said that the man in the photograph is a soldier on corona virus duty. He hadn’t met his son for a long time and was talking to him through telephones and video calls, during duty. Since the child insisted to meet his father, he took a plastic bag and wrapped his child before hugging him. The caption also credited Malaysian daily newspaper Sinar Harian and Eris Riswandi.
The image can be seen on Eris Riswandi’s Facebook page with a similar narrative.
Malaysian news websites published the image with the report stating that the man was soldier who was on corona duty and visited his son. Thus, it is clear that the neither is the child suffering from corona virus nor is the man asking people to pray for the child. This viral post was first debunked by India Today.
