A video shared on Facebook claims Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan faked receiving his COVID-19 booster shot.

Verdict: False

Photos and videos show the needle was exposed when McGowan received the shot. A clinical care coordinator explained that the orange piece of the syringe is a hub that connects the needle to the syringe. It is not a safety cap.

Fact Check:

A video shared on Facebook features a screenshot of a tweet from McGowan about receiving his COVID-19 booster shot in December 2021. The video zooms in on an image included in the tweet that shows McGowan receiving the shot, focusing on an orange piece around the tip of the syringe, before cutting to an image of an unused syringe. The video seems to allege the safety cap that covers the needle had not been removed prior to McGowan receiving his shot.

“Mark McGowan – Premier of Western Australia, fakes his booster shot,” reads part of the video’s caption.

Photos and videos from the event show McGowan did receive his COVID-19 booster, however. Local Australian news channel 7NEWS Perth captured the moment McGowan received the booster which shows the nurse pushing down on the syringe’s plunger as she injects it into the premier’s arm. (RELATED: Did Joe Biden Fake His Covid-19 Vaccine Booster Shot ‘In A Fake White House’?)

McGowan also shared a different photo of his booster vaccination with a clear shot of the needle on Facebook. “Unfortunately a few people are wrongly suggesting the syringe still has a cap on and using this to develop random conspiracy theories,” he wrote in the post.

The orange cap seen on the syringe is not a safety cap, but rather the hub. The hub is defined as “the end of a needle that can connect to a syringe or other component,” according to Connecticut Hypodermics Inc. The same type of syringe has been used and photographed in Australia, as can be seen in the featured photo of this Perth Now article.

Clara Gamboa-Rankin, a clinical care coordinator at Jamaica Hospital Nursing Home, confirmed to Check Your Fact via phone that the orange component visible on the syringe in the Facebook video is the hub, adding that it “holds the metal portion of the needle in place.”