Video shows “pupils in Nigeria running away from being vaccinated.”
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No, this video doesn’t show Nigerian students fleeing a COVID-19 vaccine
If Your Time is short
The video from May 2019 shows students fleeing from a tear gas canister exploding at a school in Nigeria.
A years-old video that shows students in uniform dropping from a second-story and then running away from a building is again gaining traction after being shared on Facebook, but the description of the footage is inaccurate.
"Pupils in Nigeria running away from being vaccinated of covic19 vaccine," the post says, referring to the vaccine against COVID-19.
It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Though this version of the video was posted back in January, and this post was being widely viewed in August, the original video has been online since before the first COVID-19 case was reported in China in December 2019.
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As other fact-checkers have reported, it was posted on YouTube in May of 2019, when a tear gas canister exploded at a school in Nigeria.
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"The explosion caused panic," the Guardian reported, "prompting several students who were scared to start jumping down from the first floor of the two-storey of the secondary school."
As of mid-August, only about 700,000 people in Nigeria had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to Reuters. That’s a fraction of the country’s 200 million residents though it recently received a delivery of four million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
We rate this post False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, Jan. 26, 2021
YouTube, 40 injured in teargas explosion at Rivers school, May. 26, 2019
The Guardian, 17-year-old student questioned for tear gas detonation, May 26, 2019
BBC News, Secondary school in Port Harcourt: student used dead policeman weapon cause panic for PH school - police, May 26, 2019
Daily Trust, 40 injured in teargas explosion at Rivers School, May 26, 2019
Reuters, Nigeria to resume COVID vaccinations on Aug. 16, Aug. 10, 2021
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No, this video doesn’t show Nigerian students fleeing a COVID-19 vaccine
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