Fact Check: Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci did not violate social distancing norms

A photo is doing the rounds on the internet that shows Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, and White House Coronavirus advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, walking in close proximity to each other and not wearing masks. It is being claimed that both the men who advocate about the importance of social distancing and using masks are violating these norms themselves.
The text on the picture reads, ‘No social distancing or masks for these two demons they are shutting down an entire planet’.

FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the picture and found that it is old and unrelated to this period of the Coronavirus outbreak.
On putting the picture through Reverse Image Search, we found the uncropped version of the picture published on December 12, 2018, on the website of the National Institute of Health (NIH), a government agency in the United States of America, responsible for public health research.

The picture was also uploaded on NIH’s Flicker account on December 11, 2018.

The description of the picture read, ‘The NIH teamed with the Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation to hold their fifth annual consultative workshop on global health. The workshop took place on December 11, 2018 in Bethesda, MD. Some of the topics discussed were a universal flu vaccine, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal, neonatal and child health. Pictured are Bill Gates (left), Dr. Anthony Fauci (far left), director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Francis Collins (right), NIH director. Credit: National Institutes of Health’.
Hence, the above information proves that the picture is old and not related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at all.