An old news bulletin is being shared on social media to falsely claim that Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada is going to witness a lockdown in the light of coronavirus cases. However, we found that the bulletin is an old one from June 2020.
CLAIM
The nearly two-minute long bulletin is being shared with the claim: “LOCKDOWN IN Vijayawada city FROM MARCH 26th. People living in Vijayawada bring your #groceries , #medicines and all other your needs. (sic)”
Facebook user ‘UIB MEDIA’ later deleted the post that claimed that the city in Andhra Pradesh is going to witness a lockdown.
A Twitter user shared the video saying that it’s viral on WhatsApp as well.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Since the viral news bulletin carried the logo of regional Telugu news channel NTV, we searched on YouTube using keywords ‘NTV Vijaywada lockdown’ and came across a bulletin uploaded on 23 June 2020 that carried the viral visuals.
The video was captioned as: ‘Complete Lockdown Imposed in Vijayawada’.
From 02:25 minutes onwards in the YouTube video, one can see the same visuals as in the viral one.
News outlets such as India Today and The News Minute had then reported on lockdown being declared in Vijaywada.
However, as per the TNM report, the order that was issued for the city to witness another lockdown for a week from 26 June 2020, was withdrawn within an hour.
Krishna district Collector Md Imtiaz had then reportedly said, “The present situation would continue and fresh orders would be issued in this regard, thereby nullifying his earlier order for a lockdown.”
Further, fact-checking wing of the AP government tweeted that the video in circulation is from June 2020 and that “as of now, there has been no official announcement regarding a COVID-19 induced lockdown in Andhra Pradesh.”
Evidently, an old bulletin from 2020 was revived to falsely claim that the city of Vijayawada was going to go into a lockdown.
Several old videos and bulletins are being revived in the light of rising COVID-19 cases to falsely claim that chief ministers of some states have made recent announcements regarding lockdowns. The Quint’s WebQoof team earlier debunked those involving Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.
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