HOAX: Footage from Austrian television is not related to COVID-19, but shows climate activists demonstrating in Vienna

A social media post has gone viral through the Czech and Slovak-language Internet alleging that an Austrian news broadcast on live TV “accidentally” featured  content of bodies in body bags that was allegedly being faked – in the footage, one of the bodies can be seen beginning to move on its own, allegedly revealing that the image is a “fraud”. While the author of the post does not directly allege fakery in his comment, most of those sharing the footage relate it to COVID-19 and comment that it allegedly proves the entire pandemic is being “faked”.  

The footage, however, is from the live broadcast of an anti-climate crisis demonstration. Czech news server Manipulátoři.cz has pointed this out. 

Posted to the social network TikTok, the video has been shared thousands of times there and Czech Facebook users, including Romani community members, are sharing it on that particular social media. When one looks closely at the video, one can see its headline reads “Wien: Demo gegen klimap…” and that some people in the background are holding a banner. 

Those aspects make it clear that the footage is of an anti-climate change demonstration. The “Fridays for Future” movement held the protest in Vienna on 4 February and climate activists sought to draw attention to a study showing that 49 people die every day due the climate crisis.

The 49 people in the body bags were playing the role of climate change victims during the demonstration. The footage itself, therefore, is not about COVID-19 and does not involve a scam of any kind.