Coronavirus

Did Dr. Kerry Chant, the New South Wales, Australia, chief health officer, post a tweet that dismissed the deaths of three children while celebrating a "better than expected" result of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout for children? No, that's not true: This is a fabricated tweet. Chant did not tweet this, and the claims in the fake tweet are false. A…

Did two 7-year-old Australian children, Allison Coleman and Lachlan Leary, both die shortly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in the week the COVID vaccines were being rolled out in New South Wales to children in the 5- to 11-year-old age bracket? No, that's not true: Other than the social media posts that put the stories into circulation, there is no…

Have only three drugs "ever been subject to the Nobel Prize because of their impact on human lives"? No, that's not true: At least four Nobel Prizes have been awarded to scientists for inventing drugs that have had a "significant impact on human lives." The claim originated in a Facebook post (archived here) on December 5, 2021. It opened with:…

Are COVID-19 vaccines growing new variants inside the bodies of vaccinated people? No, that's not true: The virus that causes COVID constantly changes through a natural ongoing process of mutation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has nothing to do with the vaccine. The CDC also says the COVID vaccine shots do not create or cause…

Did the United Kingdom admit the COVID-19 vaccine damages the natural immune system? No, that's not true: The claim in the National Daily Newspaper misconstrues information in the COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report - Week 42 by the UK Health Security Agency published on October 21, 2021. The report doesn't suggest the immune system is compromised by the COVID vaccine and…

Is the purpose of COVID-19 vaccines to "kill off a large proportion of the population"? No, there's no evidence that's true: The idea stems from a sprawling conspiracy theory that alternately posits COVID, the vaccines or both as being manufactured with the goal of depopulating Earth. The claim was made by "Dr. Shankara Chetty" during a video interview (archived here)…

Do the number of fully vaccinated people who are hospitalized outnumber unvaccinated hospitalized in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW)? Yes, that's true: But simple ratios don't tell the full story. The figures are found in the COVID-19 weekly surveillance report by NSW Health published on January 20, 2022. The proportion of unvaccinated people who end up hospitalized…

Do COVID-19 vaccines contain 81 strands of bacteria and HIV? No, that's not true: A video showing a masked woman making false claims about COVID vaccines is an altered audio-and-video package from a real interview done by VICE Media with a medical professional, then dubbed over with audio from a Canadian organization that published an interview with a "natural doctor."…

Have just 50,000 people in the United States died from "COVID-ONLY" during the pandemic? No, that's not true: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counts COVID deaths as cases where COVID-19 was the immediate cause of death. As of the week ending January 15, 2022, that total was 848,403, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.…

Do some mouthwashes "disrupt" COVID-19 in the lab? Yes, that's true in a lab, but it's not a field-tested cure and researchers say it needs more study. The report by Rutgers University scientists, published March 1, 2021, shows two types of mouthwash "reduce virus infectivity" in the laboratory -- Listerine and the prescription Chlorhexidine (CHG). Neither the World Health Organization…

Did researchers discover "various foreign objects" -- like worms hatching from eggs -- in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: None of the listed ingredients in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine are intentionally harmful. The claim, which originated in this article published January 8, 2022, by the RAIR Foundation, reappeared in an article (archived here) published by Liberty Planet…

Do respirator masks prescribed to reduce viral spread contain nano-robot parasites called Morgellons? No, that's not true: "Nano" describes structures one billionth of a meter across, which makes the video images impossible, since it shows a fingertip alongside the purported nano-bot. Scientists have been unable to verify the existence of any parasite that could be causing "Morgellons Disease," which the…

Did the Washington State Board of Health adopt a rule that would involuntarily place unvaccinated residents, including children, into COVID-19 quarantine camps? No, that's not true: The board made an administrative rule change to the law that governs the state's handling of HIV and some other communicable diseases. The rules do not apply to COVID. The claim began circulating on…

Did an MIT scientist prove that the COVID-19 vaccines have possible long-term side effects? No, that's not true: The "scientist" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a computer scientist who offered no proof that the COVID-19 vaccines have possible side effects when she appeared on Laura Ingraham's FOX News show but instead repeated multiple false claims about spike proteins…

Did author and self-proclaimed naturopathic practitioner Robert O. Young present legitimate testimony that admits that governments are using medicine to "exterminate" Black people? No, that's not true: The International Tribunal for Natural Justice (ITNJ) is not a real court of law and the statements made by Young in his "testimony" are not based in fact. The claim, which has made…

Did the Make-A-Wish Foundation refuse to grant a 4-year-old cancer patient a wish because he is not vaccinated? That's not true: The charity's medical team had ruled out air travel and large group settings for unvaccinated and critically ill children, which is why the charity's staff asked the boy to make a wish other than flying his family to Disney…

Are COVID-19 boosters weakening the immune system? No, that's not true: Articles and social media reports saying that Marco Cavaleri, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) vaccine strategy chief, fears repeated booster shots would weaken the immune system are incorrect. The EMA press office said, "It seems a journalist misunderstood the comments made by Dr. Cavaleri at the EMA's press briefing…

Is this meme correct in saying COVID-19 is less deadly than what was known as Spanish flu a century ago, or current variants of seasonal flu? No, that is misleading: COVID-19 is killing more people annually than the seasonal flu did in the years prior to COVID and the CDC has declared COVID more deadly. A meme from mid-2020 going…

Did hackers "crack" the servers of COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna and reveal vaccine death data from those companies? No, that's not true: The data used to make that claim is from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a database that keeps a record of reported but often unconfirmed adverse effects. VAERS data does not prove a correlation…

Does this meme paint an accurate picture of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: Although what we know about the virus and the vaccines has changed over time, scientists and public health experts continue to say that vaccines work, especially with respect to the risk of severe illness and death. Various factors, including age, the emergence of…