An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows health care workers holding a sheet that reads in part, “Jesus stops this virus.”

Facebook/Screenshot

Verdict: False

The image has been photoshopped. In the unaltered version, the sheet has an Italian message that roughly translates to “Help us Stay at home We cannot.”

Fact Check:

The photo being shared on Facebook shows four health care workers dressed in scrubs and medical masks while holding a white sheet that reads, “Jesus stops this virus you can do everything Thank you.” It also includes an image of Jesus’s face.

The “virus” mentioned in the message is likely SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, photos of health care workers fighting the virus on the frontlines have been shared widely online. (RELATED: Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Say, ‘Jesus Was A Lot Like Trump, Both Con Artists’?) 

The image in the Facebook post has been photoshopped. The Daily Caller News Foundation found the undoctored picture in an article published by the Italian media outlet inews24.it in March 2020. In the unaltered photo, there are Italian words on the sheet that, according to Google Translate, roughly translate to “Help us Stay at home We cannot.”

A rough translation of the March 2020 inews24.it article indicates that the story talks about Italian health care workers urging people to stay at home to help curb the spread of COVID-19. In mid-March last year, media outlets described Italy as the “epicenter” of the pandemic. Over 2 million people across the globe have died from COVID-19 to date, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Internet users have previously manipulated the words on the sheet being held by the health care workers in the photo to express other messages. For example, one photoshopped version makes the sheet say, “Coronavirus will end soon… In Jesus name, amen!”

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