Is This Image of Cape Town Convention Centre Temporary COVID-19 Hospital?

A tweep shared the image above claiming it is of Cape Town International Convention Centre, CTICC temporary hospital. The image shows rows of hospital beds with patients covered with emojis to conceal their identity. The caption used alongside the image is very emotive making some people think it is fake news.

A similar claim can be found here.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the pace of change in the healthcare sector the world over, from telehealth expansion to the rapid deployment of temporary hospitals to cater for overwhelmed hospitals.

South Africa has so far recorded over 300,000 cases of COVID-19 and over 4,000 deaths (see up-to-date figures here). Last month, MSF opened a COVID-19 field hospital in Khayelitsha District Hospital in Cape Town to help increase local healthcare capacity to meet urgent needs.

Verification

An image search shows that a member of the Western Cape parliament, Ricardo Mackenzie, shared the image on June 29, 2020, in a tweet (see below), saying it was taken at the CTICC.

The temporary hospital reportedly known as the Hospital of Hope, and the biggest COVID-19 field hospital in Africa, started admitting its first COVID-19 patients June 8, exactly one month after work on the site began.

The images used in various reports match the one that was shared online.

Screenshot from Bloomberg report

Verdict

The image shared online as being of CTICC temporary hospital is real making the claim TRUE.

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