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FACT BRIEF

Did an Australian government health organization use actors to portray COVID-19 patients?

By Christiana Dillard
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NO

The people featured in an Australian public health video are real COVID-19 patients.

A video by New South Wales Health included clips from patients with COVID-19 talking about their serious illness and advocating vaccinations.

That video was assailed on social media as fake, purportedly using actors to portray patients. A major news program, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch, aired a program debunking the social media posts by identifying the patients by name and by photo.

But social media users snipped the Media Watch story to create a version that seemed to agree that actors were the patients.

The snipped version left out details including the Media Watch anchor saying, as he referred to a female patient by name, "So is Ramona a crisis actor pretending to have COVID for New South Wales Health? No, of course she's not."

See a full discussion of this at Lead Stories
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
ABC News In-depth COVID 'crisis actor' conspiracies flood social media | Media Watch
New South Wales Health Facebook post rebuking claims about use of 'crisis actors'
ABC (Australia) Media Watch
New South Wales Health Home page
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Lead Stories
Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.