A video of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visiting a temple in Auckland is being shared on Facebook with a misleading claim that she visited a Temple after declaring her country free of COVID-19.
However, we found out that Ardern visited the temple in the run up to the elections scheduled to be held in September in the country and not because New Zealand has been declared free of COVID.
In fact, on Tuesday, 11 August, Auckland was directed to observe lockdown to prevent an outbreak of novel coronavirus as the city reported its first local case after more than 100 days.
CLAIM
The claim with the video reads, “New Zealand P.M visited a Temple after declaring no Covid-19 in country (sic).”
The video is being massively shared on Facebook with the misleading claim.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On conducting a keyword search on Google, we came across various news reports which had published stories on Ardern’s temple visit. A story in The Indian Express mentioned that Ardern visited a ‘Radha Krishna Mandir’ in Auckland on Wednesday, 5 August ahead of the elections in the country.
Nowhere does the story mention that the visit was connected to COVID-19.
We also came across a video which was uploaded by the Facebook page of ‘Radha Krishna Temple’ which too, mentioned Ardern’s visit, but no mention of coronavirus.
Pictures from Ardern’s visit were also shared by Muktesh Pardeshi, India’s High Commissioner to New Zealand.
Evidently, pictures and videos from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s temple visit is being shared with a misleading coronavirus claim.
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