From pretending to experience flu-like symptoms mid-flight to ‘spilling’ a bucket of ‘ coronavirus ’ on the New York subway, the COVID-19 outbreak has spurred on a number or inappropriate videos on social media.
Now, one Italian YouTuber has come under fire for pretending to enter a coronavirus ‘red area’ in Italy.
Francesco Belardi, a 24-year-old YouTuber, posted a video to his 390,000 YouTube subscribers, pretending to have entered Lodigiano – an area under quarantine.
In the video, Mr Belardi claimed that he’d eluded checkpoints to shoot ‘exclusive footage’ of the area.
While the original video has since been removed, a video of his Instagram Stories has been posted on YouTube.
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In the video, Mr Belardi said claims that he and three friends managed to sneak past check points, before exploring the red area.
He said: “The rumours circulating are false: you can enter the red zone in complete tranquillity, but then you cannot leave it for fourteen days”.
However, La Repubblica has since revealed that Mr Belardi actually filmed the videos in the nearby town of Guardamiglio, which is outside the ‘red zone.’
Now, a complaint has been made against the YouTuber, who could face three months in prison and a fine of £267 for ‘publication or diffusion of false, exaggerated or tendentious news’, according to Corriere.
Since receiving the backlash, Mr Belardi has made his Instagram account private.
The video comes shortly after James Potok, a YouTuber based in Ontario, pretended he was infected with coronavirus while travelling on a WestJet flight from Toronto to Montego Bay.
During the flight, Mr Potok told passengers: “I just came back from Wuhan province, the capital of the coronavirus, I’m not feeling too well. Thank you.”
His ‘prank’ resulted in the plane, which was carrying 250 passengers, turning around.
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