A segment of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony has been misrepresented in social media posts that claim it shows a “giant figure of death holding a needle” foreshadowing the Covid-19 pandemic. The claim is misleading; the cloaked figure in the ceremony was a puppet holding a wand, representing Harry Potter’s antagonist Voldemort, who appeared alongside various villains from children’s literature.
Social media posts feature a photo of tractors blocking a highway and claim that it shows a convoy in the Netherlands inspired by truckers protesting Covid-19 vaccine mandates in Canada. This is false; the photo appeared online in a 2019 article about farmers protesting enviromental regulations before the pandemic started.