A note published by the Prophetic News site circulates in networks where alleged statements by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus are cited. However, those sayings were misrepresented in this publication and do not match those made during the speech he gave on July 9.
A note published on the “Prophetic News” site is circulating on Facebook citing statements allegedly made by the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warning of the arrival of a new pandemic with tragic results. This is false because the official's statements were misrepresented.
Under the title “Head of the WHO cries and alerts the world: 'Prepare for another Pandemic, it will be another tragedy'” (sic), the publication maintains that the head of the institution “has said in an interview for the open media , that the world must prepare for another pandemic, which will undoubtedly be worse than it is and that in turn the world must prepare in terms of health systems to be able to cover all kinds of needs “.
The note had more than 88 thousand interactions on Facebook , according to Crowdtangle, a tool used to measure the reach of content on that social network. This misinformation was shared in Facebook conversation groups of the news channels C5N (from Argentina) and Noticias Telemicro (from the Dominican Republic), also in a group called “Carmen Aristegui, the voice of the people” and in another called “Club America mx ”. In those groups, it reached 1,500 shares and 1,000 likes. It is worth clarifying that this misinformation was not officially shared by those TV signals, but rather the users themselves did.
The disinformation about the alleged statements by the WHO director-general is presented as a traditional story, with an informative title and a standard news headline. However, from the second paragraph on, the note becomes a long unsigned opinion, where on occasions it cites alleged statements by Ghebreyesus, all indirectly, and analyzes his sayings through some data that, ultimately, do not delve into anything. regarding the supposed new pandemic that is coming.
Although the disinformation has no date, there is a clue that makes it possible to detect the time and place where these alleged demonstrations took place. At the end of the note, there is a video of the Russian network RT archived as “The Director of the WHO cries at a press conference” (sic). It is an edited excerpt with statements made by Ghebreyesus on July 9, 2020 at the information session on COVID-19 for WHO Member States.
There it is appreciated how the director general of the WHO sheds some tears, but he does so when speaking of the need for nations to be united and in solidarity to face the consequence of the global pandemic of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
“We cannot go back to doing things as before, my friends. This time, doing the usual has not worked. We have not made all this effort to solemnly establish a committee and receive a report that ends up forgotten in a drawer. We must come together in a conversation on a global scale, take up the teachings we have painfully learned and transform them into action. Make no mistake, my friends. The biggest threat we face right now is not the virus. The biggest threat is the lack of leadership and solidarity at the national and global levels. That is why I believe that each and every one of us should reflect. This tragedy is taking many lives and has separated us from our loved ones. We will not be able to defeat this pandemic if the world is divided, “he said.
Ghebreyesus's full speech can be found on the official WHO website . When making a full reading of the text, the statement about the new pandemic and the tragedy that it will bring is not found that erroneously quotes the post that went viral.
There is a passage in which he introduces former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the future co-chairs of the evaluation committee called the “Independent Pandemic Preparedness and Response Group.”
Regarding them, he said that they will be the ones who will guide the organization through “this fundamental learning process” that will allow “to understand what happened through an honest evaluation and help us understand what we must do to prevent another tragedy like this from being repeated in the future, so that the whole world says in unison: never again ”.
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This note was produced by the Federal Network against Disinformation (RedDES), a collaborative federal media network created to produce and disseminate rumor checks and false content about coronavirus that are circulating through social networks. The contact channels are: by mail to redfederal@chequeado.com and / Checked in all networks. If you received suspicious information through WhatsApp, you can send it to 11.3679.0690 for verification.
