German tabloid Bild in hot water for giving airtime to Covid-19 testing firm currently under investigation

German tabloid Bild has come under fire after airing an interview with an ex-Playboy model who founded a controversial online startup selling pricey coronavirus home test kits. The company appeared to raise many red flags.

“Now, you can get coronavirus tests delivered right [to your] home,” a smiling presenter happily tells Germans in a video titled ‘You have to pay attention to it! This is how a coronavirus home test works’, published on Bild’s website. The announcement might well sound like salvation for people amid the coronavirus epidemic, which has already infected more than 67,000 across the country.

The capacities of testing laboratories have been stretched thin since the start of the outbreak, and lines in front of the test centers have been long. The Bild video says, however, that anyone can find out whether they need to self-isolate in a couple of days just by purchasing a home test kit. This ‘clarity’ comes at a price though, since the kit costs €249 ($272), according to the online startup offering this service.

A young woman presented as the startup’s ‘co-founder’ then went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate in person how these home tests should be properly used and to apparently assure viewers that this is all serious business. Other German media outlets, however, quickly discovered that something about the story wasn’t adding up.

The startup appeared to be tight-lipped about the most essential part of the process – the testing itself, since it did not mention any specific laboratory it works with by name. Instead, it only mentioned that the home test samples will be “tested in certified German laboratories in your area.” Its ‘co-founder’ also told Bild that the company simply cooperates with facilities that have the “capacity” to process additional home samples alongside their regular testing, which may sound odd taking into account the overall situation.

It seems unlikely, however, that the woman in the video identified as Jessica Czakon would have extensive contacts in the field of medicine. After all, she appears to be neither a doctor nor a microbiologist, but an Instagram blogger and former Playboy model.

The second co-founder and ‘managing director’, Gennaro Piro, hardly has any medical qualifications either. According to German media, the man is known for selling Instagram followers through his website rooketboost.de.

An investigation conducted by VICE also claimed that the venture, which went under the names of Medi.Lab, Corona-Testen, and Corona-Abstrich, passed someone else’s materials off as its own. According to VICE, photos of its test kits were taken from German newspaper TAZ’s piece on another manufacturer’s coronavirus tests, while its questionnaire was taken from a Berlin laboratory that said it never worked with the controversial startup and called its materials “fraudulent.”

The company’s Instagram account which supposedly featured all these materials has since been shut down.

When VICE asked a German industrial safety watchdog to inspect the suspicious company, it turned out that “there was not even a mailbox” at its supposed registered address. The case was then handed over to the regional public prosecutor’s office in Hannover, which is now expected to look into the activities of the business.

Bild, which is known for publishing sensationalist material, apparently took all the information presented by the company at face value. Not to mention, its video suspiciously resembles an advertisement, as other media outlets pointed out, but is not marked as such. So much for a publication that from time to time lectures its colleagues on ‘professional journalism’!

Axel Springer publishing house, which owns Bild, brushed off these accusations, saying the tabloid simply informed its readers about the coronavirus home test kits “in an understandable and descriptive way.”

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