Dozens of people were reportedly placed under observation after a laboratory worker at a Russian institute dedicated to studying plague and other infectious diseases died of severe pneumonia. The case quickly became the subject of intense speculation on social media. Posts have ranged from expressions of fear and comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic to claims about the laboratory incident that have not been substantiated. DW Fact Check has examined several of the claims circulating online. Claim: "For those who don't get it: in Irkutsk, a lab technician broke a flask containing the plague virus and became infected with the disease, dying a few days later," a user posted on X in Russian.
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