Several officers of the Chinese SWAT team halt a car, the driver wearing a face-mask is asked to step out, upon his refusal to cooperate the cops forcibly catch him using a net and take him away. A video depicting this sequence of events is widely circulating on social media with the claim that it shows the treatment of coronavirus victims in China.
The way that China stops and arrests a #coronavirus suspect on the road. pic.twitter.com/IlQUHkH1FQ
— Wu Lebao (@MerlotN) February 22, 2020
Several users have requested for a fact-check.
Extraordinary. SWAT teams take down coronavirus suspects on China highway.
This was a WA forward: @AltNews @boomlive_in can you verify authenticity? pic.twitter.com/2CyC5fFrRp
— PKR | প্রশান্ত | پرشانتو (@prasanto) February 24, 2020
Alt News has also received several requests on its official mobile application.
FACT-CHECK
At several points in the video, officers can be seen holding a board which reads “exercises”.
A Youtube search ‘china swat exercise coronavirus’ led us to several international media reports describing the video. According to a February 25 report by NBC News, “Police in China’s Henan province posted a video on social media showing a simulation of how they will deal with drivers who ignore virus checkpoints.”
“It [the video] shows a simulation of how a SWAT team controls a driver – with an abnormal temperature – who refuses to stop at a checkpoint,” says the NBC report. Several other media outlets also reported the mock drill.
In China, SWAT teams have been practising drills to detain those suspected of being infected with Coronavirus.
They use nets, roadblocks and anti-bacterial spray to contain the disease and arrest un-cooperative patients. pic.twitter.com/XnepCNP0EX
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 25, 2020
A video of a mock drill where Chinese SWAT team tackles an uncooperative coronavirus victim has been shared on social media as real.
