An article from a notorious fake news website – World News Daily Report (WNDR) claiming Chinese authorities said patient zero of the Coronavirus had sex with bats, is going viral online with netizens believing it to be real. Patient zero is the person identified as the first carrier of a communicable disease in an outbreak. At the time of writing this story the article titled -‘COVID-19: Chinese health authorities confirm patient zero ‘had sex with bats’ had over 300,000 interaction on Facebook and nearly 40,000 shares according to data from Crowd Tangle, a social media monitoring tool. The article makes up a bogus story about Chinese authorities identifying a 24-year old man Yin Dao Tang from Hubei province as the first case of the novel coronavirus that emerged on November 17. The website further claims Tang is believed to have contracted the disease after indulging in sexual acts with several animals, including bats. The bizarre story includes a ficticious quote attributed to a Chinese official and includes a picture of a old man – supposed to Tang’s father, admitting to being deeply ashamed of his son’s actions.
