Fact Check: Delta variant of coronavirus is real; photo of Donald Trump shared with fake claim

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A post going viral on social media shows a picture of former US President Donald Trump, in which Trump has an executive order in his hands, on which it is written Delta Variant is fake news. Vishvas News investigated the viral post and found that the viral post with Trump’s picture is altered with a fake text.

Claim

A post shared by a Facebook user named Gene Hiett shows an executive order in the hands of former US President Donald Trump. The order reads, “Delta variant is fake news.”

The archived version of the viral post is can be seen here.

Investigation

Vishvas News started its investigation by performing Google Reverse Image Search of the viral post. We found a picture from 2017 in which the then-President Donald Trump had signed on to exit the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And a picture from that incident was used to create many similar memes. An archived of this picture is available here.

We further investigated the claim that the Delta variant of the coronavirus is fake news. Viruses change over time. The variant found during the second wave of coronavirus in India has been named Delta variant by the World Health Organization. This new variant of coronavirus has been described as very dangerous. This variant of the virus spreads more quickly and easily than the older virus. According to the World Health Organization, the delta variant of the coronavirus is being seen in 98 countries of the world.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical head of the WHO’s Health Emergency Program, while discussing the delta version, said, “Where the delta variant is identified, it tends to spread more rapidly among people than the alpha variant.”

According to the CDC’s estimates, the Delta variant became dominant in the country over the two weeks that ended July 3, 2021 with 51.7% cases linked to the variant.

We spoke to Dr. SCL Gupta, Medical Director and Laparoscopic Surgeon of Batra Hospital about the delta variant of coronavirus, and he said that the delta variant is very dangerous. He said that this version of the virus spreads rapidly and could affect around 10 percent of children in the coming days.

We scanned the profile of the Facebook user named Gene Hiett who shared the viral post. We found that the user is based out of Georgia.

Conclusion

Vishvas News investigated and found that the picture of former US President Donald Trump in social media has been tampered with and is quoted with a misleading statement that the delta variant of the coronavirus is fake. Donald Trump has not said anything like this. The delta variant of the coronavirus isn’t fake news, it actually exists.

(With inputs from Manish Kumar)

Tags

• Coronavirus
• Fact Check
• fake news