Non-Muslim Chinese performed Friday prayers due to the fear of novel coronavirus outbreak.

A video clip posted on a Facebook account belonging to a Facebook user Mak Mohamed and a report by the Xinhua News Agency disproves the statement.

A video clip posted on a Facebook account belonging to a Facebook user Mak Mohamed and a report by the Xinhua News Agency disproves the statement.A video had been shared on multiple social media platforms claiming that non-Muslim Chinese people performing a Friday prayer after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in December 2019.

The same video was posted on Mak Mohamed's Facebook account on 5 June 2019 with a caption "Eid prayer in China, Yiwu, Zhejiang province. The man while speaking in the Malayalam language to the camera at the beginning of the Facebook live footage states that he had attended the Eid prayer at the mosque in China’s Yiwu.

Also, the Chinese-state run Xinhua News Agency reported that Muslims across China celebrated Eid al-Fitr on 5 June 2019, a day after Mak Mohamed posted the video on his Facebook account.

Therefore, the viral video is of an Eid prayer in China in June 2019, months before the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19 including symptoms, prevention and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organisation or your national healthcare authority.