Thailand’s health minister scared of COVID vaccine? No, Chinese man from 2018 video

On February 1, Pakistani Canadian columnist Tarek Fatah tweeted a video of an Asian man having a panic attack before getting injected with a syringe. English and Arabic text inscribed on the video states that the man is Thailand’s health minister. The video has gained close to 10,000 views. Last year, Alt News compiled an extensive list of misinformation shared by Fatah on social media.

Fighting Covid19 one teardrop at a time. pic.twitter.com/ET1PPW3EpZ

— Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) February 1, 2021

In the first month of 2021, we saw COVID-19 vaccine roll out in multiple countries. As per the World Health Organisation’s January 29 dataset, there are 63 COVID-19 vaccines in clinical development and 174 vaccines in pre-clinical development phase across the world. You can track the global vaccine roll out on the infographics on the platform ‘Our World In Data‘.

Alt News received several requests on our WhatsApp helpline number (+917600011160) and on our official Android application to authenticate the viral video.

Some Facebook users have also shared the video with Hindi caption that reads, “Someone recommended me this video and now I’m sharing it with you. In this video, the man has been recognised as Thailand’s health minsiter. You can verify the video yourself. However, the video will entertain you.”

(किसी ने मुझसे साझा किया और मैं आप लोगों के साथ इस वीडियो को साझा कर रहा हूं। इस वीडियो में इन को थाईलैंड का हेल्थ मिनिस्टर बताया गया है। सत्यता की जांच आप स्वयं करें लेकिन वीडियो आपका मनोरंजन जरूर करेगा.)

Old video, false claim

After a keyword search on YouTube, we found that the video is from February 2018. South China Morning Post (SCMP) uploaded the video with the title ‘Chinese man scared of his first-ever injection’. This video includes English subtitles. It has been viewed over 1.5 million times.

Along with medical staff, the man’s wife is also present in the video. SCMP couldn’t verify if the man was eventually injected or not.

Tarek Fatah and several others posted a three-year video with the false claim that Thailand’s health minister had a break down before getting COVID-19 vaccine. The video is from 2018 and the man is Chinese.