FALSE: The United States has not eradicated COVID-19
A Facebook post claiming that the United States has eradicated COVID-19 is FALSE.
The post written in Luganda loosely translates to mean, “America no longer has COVID and has announced full open up (sic). All COVID restrictions removed”.
It is accompanied by a front-page image of the New York Daily News, a US news outlet, dated 16 June, 2021.
The headline on the newspaper reads “It’s over!”, while the subheadline states “Effective immediately in New York, virtually all COVID restrictions are eliminated as gov declares victory”.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, first discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.
After the disease progressed to a pandemic, several countries around the world restricted human movements and activities as a measure to curb the spread of the highly contagious virus that commonly manifests through dry cough, fever and fatigue.
The US state of Washington confirmed its first case of the virus on 20 January 2020, from a patient who had returned from Wuhan, where the pandemic was initially discovered.
Over 179 million cases and 3.8 million deaths have been reported globally, while a total of 33,409,895 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the US as of 24 June, 2021.
A reverse image search reveals that the article was indeed published by the news outlet on 16 June, 2021, as seen here. This came after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, on June 15, 2021, announced that the state will lift most of its COVID-19 restrictions after reaching an adult vaccination rate of 70 percent.
However, the claim that the US “no longer has COVID” is untrue.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker documents that the US still has active cases, with 79,401 cases being recorded in the seven days until June 24, 2021.
PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming that the United States has eradicated COVID-19 and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Leah Kahunde Ndung’u and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.