‘The Walking Dead’ Scene Used To Spread False Coronavirus Rumor About Euthanizing Senior Citizens

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to rage across the country, there’s quite a bit of information flowing around the internet and not all that information is helpful, or truthful. One particular myth recently spread using a scene from the television show, The Walking Dead, and went viral, claiming countries were executing elderly citizens.

Boom Live reports a photo taken from a scene of the popular series is making its way around Facebook. The scene, which purports to show a man walking through a veritable sea of corpses is actually former The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln playing Rick Grimes. While the character is supposed to be wading through thousands of corpses, the picture is a bit of television magic rather than the victims of mass extermination of a particular country’s citizens.

According to the site, the picture and false explanation were first shared on Facebook by a user going by the name of Shirley Romano. It was liked and shared thousands and times and has reportedly now shown up posted by other users, but with the same basic claims about what The Walking Dead scene is showing.

The post that went along with the picture, in a mix of English and predominantly Philippine dialect of Tagalog claims governments are being “practical” by intentionally ending the lives of elderly citizens in order to save resources.

“Do you know why there are many dead in other countries and they’re mostly the elderly? It’s because their governments are practical. They are thinking that if the government gives proper attention and care to seniors or the elderly, at the end the effort will be useless because they are already unproductive, so they are removed from ventilators. In short, euthanasia is what they’re doing. That’s why the dead are strewn.”

The shot appears to be from an episode of The Walking Dead titled “What Comes After” which, perhaps ironically, was the final appearance on the series for Lincoln as Rick Grimes.

It’s true that the coronavirus outbreak has taken scores of lives and sickened many more. The world is approaching 3 million people infected and more than 200,000 have died, but there are no credible reports that any country has started executing any of its citizens for any reason that has to do with the outbreak.

Exactly why Facebook users have started sharing a picture from The Walking Dead and claiming some countries are strewing bodies across the landscape isn’t known. The original post appears to be suggesting the user’s country of origin should begin the practice.