Says 20 million Chinese converted to Islam after it’s proven that the coronavirus doesn’t affect Muslims.

Amid fears about the coronavirus disease, a YouTube video offers a novel way to inoculate yourself: convert to Islam. 

“20m Chinese gets converted to Islam after it is proven that corona virus did not affect the Muslims,” reads the title of a video posted online Feb. 18. The footage shows a room full of men raising an index finger and reciting what sounds like the Shahadah, a statement of faith in Islam.

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That’s because the footage is from at least as far back as May 26, 2019, when it was posted on Facebook with this caption: “Alhamdulillah welcome to our brothers in faith.”

On Nov. 7, 2019, it was posted on YouTube with this title: “MashaaAllah hundreds converted to Islam in Philippines.”

Both posts appeared online before the current outbreak of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, was first reported in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019. 

But even if the footage followed the outbreak, Muslims are not immune to COVID-19, as the Facebook post claims. 

After China, Iran has emerged as the second focal point for the spread of COVID-19, the New York Times reported on Feb. 24. “The Middle East is in many ways the perfect place to spawn a pandemic, experts say, with the constant circulation of both Muslim pilgrims and itinerant workers who might carry the virus.”

On Feb. 18, Newsweek reported that coronavirus “poses a serious risk to millions of inmates in China’s Muslim prison camps.”  

We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire.