Did 67 children ages 5-14 die from COVID-19 in 2020? Yes (68, to be precise), but this chart comparing that to the much higher death tolls from traffic accidents, fires and other causes obscures the risk posed by children's infections, which though rarely fatal to the child, are increasing and can spread and add to the adult cases, hundreds of…

Are stillbirths rampant among fully vaccinated mothers? No, that's not true. The claim that there is a spike in stillbirths among mothers who had received a full COVID-19 vaccine is not supported by any evidence. It was made by a doctor in Canada and was denied by two Canadian health care organizations, and is the opposite of statistics published by…

Did Japanese health ministry panels of experts add myocarditis to warning labels for COVID-19 vaccines? Yes, that's true, but they are not in "stark contrast" to the rest of the world. The addition of warnings about myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart) to the Pfizer and Moderna labels in Japan on…

Did UNICEF and several agencies and organizations based in the United Kingdom endorse a graphic that includes misinformation about masks? No, that's not true: Six of the eight agencies and organizations included in the graphic told Lead Stories they did not co-sign the inaccurate graphic, which nonetheless pasted on their logos, including two obsolete logos. Lead Stories awaits updates from…

Did the CEO of BioNTech, Dr. Ugur Sahin, refuse to "take the jab"? No, that's not true: The post where this claim was made features an outdated video and makes up a safety concern Sahin did not express in public statements nor even in the video used for this post. Sahin was not yet eligible to receive the vaccine when…

Did Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, appear on a billboard that includes the phrase, "No Jab, No Job, no refunds"? No, that's not true: Ardern's media staff told us that the billboard was fake. We also found the original billboard image. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on December 8, 2021. The post was…

Did 60,000 scientists call for an end to mass vaccination? No, that's not true: In an October 2020 document called "The Great Barrington Declaration," three health experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford described their plan as "Focused Protection." It urged "those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus…

Did Pfizer scientists warn the public that weekly vaccinations would need to begin to provide protection against the Omicron variant? No, that's not true: This claim is in an article from a website that defines itself as a "financial satire site." A representative from Pfizer also told Lead Stories that there is no evidence that weekly vaccinations would be beneficial.…

Did police in Germany detain an elderly woman because she could not present proof of vaccination? No, that's not true: Local police confirmed that an 80-year-old woman was detained in Göppingen, Germany on December 6, 2021, but not for that reason. The woman took part in an unregistered protest march and refused to show her ID to police, which is…

Does Vermont, with its nation-leading vaccination rate, also have the highest rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents? No, that's not true: Vermont ranks first in vaccination rates and 49th in rate of COVID cases. The claim has circulated on social media, including in this December 2, 2021, Facebook video (archived here) posted to the Charlie Kirk account under the…

Are pilot deaths up 1,700% after vax mandates? No, that's not true: The erroneous claim is based on an "In Memoriam" list that was published in the Air Line Pilots Association magazine that shows that more pilots died in 2021 than in 2020 and 2019. "The information in one magazine edition does not provide a complete report of the total…

Does a video posted online show an indigenous elder being forced into a van by law enforcement for violating Australia's COVID-19 vaccination policies? No, that's not true: The video shows an individual who was arrested during a gathering at Rocky Ridge, also known as the Gympie Pyramid or Djaki Kundu, which some consider a sacred site for Australia's Kabi Kabi…

Does a Moderna patent reveal a nanosensor is contained in its COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: COVID vaccines contain no nanosensors. Patents for the mRNA vaccine and an ingredients list from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show the Moderna shot does not have any nanosensors in it. The interview making this claim was posted to Rumble on December…

Does the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 contain HIV or AIDS? No, that's not true: Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, and Benjamin Neuman, a professor of biology and chief virologist at Texas A&M University, told us that it may have originated in someone who may have HIV/AIDS because of the prominence of…

Did Merriam-Webster change the definition of "anti-vaxxer" during the COVID-19 pandemic to include a section about opposing vaccine mandates? No, that's not true: The section discussing opposition to vaccine mandates has been included in the Merriam-Webster definition of "anti-vaxxer" since at least 2018. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on December 7, 2021. It included a screenshot…

Does a Facebook post show a German shopping mall separating vaccinated shoppers from the unvaccinated ones, using a temporary barrier that looks like a fence? No, that's not true: The mall is not in Germany but Riga, the capital of Latvia. An uncropped version of the same picture was found on a Polish social networking site with signs written in…

Did the head of the EU Commission call for throwing out the Nuremberg Code? No, that's not true: Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission (EC), said at a December 1, 2021, news conference that it is time to consider mandatory COVID vaccinations, but made no mention of the Nuremberg Code, which is a collection of ethics…

Does this collection of images and this caption accurately portray protests against Austrian COVID-19 mandates between November and December of 2021, in the capital of Vienna? No, that's not true: Online reverse image searches reveal that two out of the four images depicted in this post do not even correlate to protests against COVID-19 mandates. These images are miscaptioned and…

Did the mayor of River City, California, make a proclamation that all dogs must wear face masks to protect them from getting sick or else their owners will be cited by police and fined? No, that's not true: The River City, California, Police Department Facebook Page is a satire page for a fictional city, and satire disclaimers are clearly posted…

Did Pfizer under-report the number of deaths in the 40,000-person clinical trial of the company's COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: The claim ignores the fact that, over the course of an ongoing clinical trial for a new vaccine, numbers change when data are updated for multiple reporting deadlines. The claim is based in part on an early and informal…