CLAIM
A video of bats under roof tiling has been shared as being from China’s Hubei, with the claim that the source of the Coronavirus outbreak in China has been found.
“The corona virus source is found. It turns out that many roofs in Hubei China are covered with chrysanthemum bats, a type of bat”, the message with the video states.
The Quint received a query about this video on its helpline number.
We found that the same video was also viral on Twitter, where it has been shared with the same claim.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim with which the video has been shared is false. The video is actually old and from Miami and has no connection whatsoever with Coronavirus outbreak in China.
WHAT WE FOUND
On running a search on YouTube with the key words “chrysanthemum bats roof”, we came across a video uploaded by a channel called ‘Istueta Roofing’ which we could see was the same as the one having been shared.
The video had been uploaded on YouTube on 6 July 2011, which makes it impossible for it to have any connection with the current outbreak of Coronavirus in China and other parts of the world. Moreover, the video was taken in Miami, USA and not in China.
The description of the video reads such: “Our crew is in for a surprise when they begin the removal process of our clients' old roof and hundreds of bats come flying out from underneath the tiles. This was unexpected! (Bat Removal is not a service that we provide.)”
On searching for the channel, we found that Istueta Roofing is a contractor based in South Florida in the US, which had undertaken this job in 2011. We also found the same video on their website.
Therefore, it is clear that the video has been shared with a false claim and has nothing to do with Coronavirus.
Reports earlier had said that there is a possibility that Coronavirus could have originated from bats, but the source of the same has not yet been confirmed.
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