Quick Take
A popular post on social media pages for conspiracy theorists claims that a mobile COVID-19 testing station bears a logo that depicts an ancient deity of death. It actually shows an aardvark, which is the name of the company that designs and manufactures the trucks.
Full Story
Conspiracy theorists skeptical of COVID-19 have mistaken an aardvark for an ancient Egyptian deity.
A photo collage circulating on QAnon message boards and Facebook groups makes the claim that the logo on a COVID-19 mobile testing unit depicts Anubis, the Egyptian god of embalming.
“Why does the COVID-19 testing facility have a logo of Anubis the god of Death?” asks the text above an array of photos that includes a COVID-19 testing truck, an image of Anubis, and a circled image of the logo.
But the logo actually belongs to Aardvark Mobile Health, a division of Aardvark Mobile Tours, which started making the trucks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The logo for that company is, you guessed it, a head-on view of an aardvark.
“The logo for Aardvark Mobile Tours was created in 2007 and includes the Aardvark head – which is what you see in the COVID-19 testing logo,” spokeswoman Carolyn Lang told FactCheck.org in an email.
The company currently operates testing trucks in the Miami area, Lang said. Florida has been a hotspot for COVID-19, with more than 73,000 new cases reported in the last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The company’s chief executive officer, Larry Borden, chose Aardvark as the company name because the double “A” would put it at the beginning of the phone book, Lang said.
Aardvarks are nocturnal African mammals that feast on bugs. Anubis is an ancient Egyptian deity who is often portrayed with the head of a jackal. Both have a snout and tall ears. See below for pictures of each one.
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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.
Sources
Aardvark Mobile Health. TestingTruck.com. Accessed 23 Jul 2020.
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. Deities in Ancient Egypt – Anubis. EgyptianEmuseum.org. Accessed 23 Jul 2020.
Lang, Carolyn. Spokeswoman, Aardvark Mobile Tours. Email exchange. 23 Jul 2020.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Aardvark. Britannica.com. Accessed 23 Jul 2020.