A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows French health care workers putting on defective Chinese-made protective gowns.

Verdict: False

Public Assistance – Hospitals of Marseille, which operates the hospital where the video was filmed, has said the gowns were damaged in storage and were not made in China.

Fact Check:

The footage shows French-speaking health care workers trying on medical gowns meant to protect them from the new coronavirus. The gowns appear to fall apart as the health care workers handle them.

Timone Hospital staff in Marseille, France, filmed themselves attempting to put on the gowns, and the video subsequently leaked on social media, according to The Daily Mail. Multiple Facebook users shared the video along with claims that China manufactured and sent the defective protective gowns to France, where over 24,100 people have died from coronavirus as of press time.

Public Assistance – Hospitals of Marseille, which controls hospitals in the region, put out a press release addressing the video on April 6. The gowns sustained damage in humid storage conditions before the coronavirus pandemic, according to a rough translation of the press release. (RELATED: Is The British Government Sending People Fines Via Text For Violating Coronavirus Stay-At-Home Rules?)

In an email to AFP Fact Check, the hospital operator also explained that “this batch of 20,400 over-blouses, 300 of which were defective because they were badly stored had been produced in France and not in China.”