Fauci

Are COVID-19 death totals off by nearly 25%? No, there's no evidence that's true. A post making the claim provided no sourcing except to urge users to check out a news website. Lead Stories found nothing on that site to back up the claim. At the time of writing, April 19, 2021, more than 560,000 people have died from COVID-19…

Have Tucker Carlson's questions about COVID-19 vaccines gone unanswered? No, that's not true: There are answers for the questions the FOX News host posed regarding COVID-19 vaccines, despite him saying there are none and despite long-established norms of scientific caution about new vaccines and diseases. On multiple shows, he has questioned why people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine have…

Does a video featuring Michael Flynn and Thomas McInerney contain only factual and proven statements? No, that's not true: The video recycles, without repairing, multiple false claims about COVID-19 and the 2020 election that have already been debunked. This fact-check considers seven such claims, including the allegation that COVID-19 was a "deliberate biological attack," that the vaccines for the virus…

Are people who received a COVID-19 vaccine "walking biological time bombs"? No, that's not true: There is no publicly available evidence the vaccines help create "superstrains and superbugs." Contrary to what the video post claims, the vaccines can actually help prevent the emergence of new variants, and early studies suggest the COVID-19 vaccines available at the time this was written…

Is the Gates Foundation a multinational corporation that profits from vaccines as part of a U.S. government plot hatched in the 1970s to depopulate developing countries? No, that's not true: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a registered nonprofit that doesn't pay dividends or capital gains to shareholders. The video cites a declassified 1974 document as proof of the…

Does mass vaccination amid the COVID-19 pandemic create an "irrepressible monster" of disease? No, that's not true: Vaccines represent one of our best hopes of stopping the spread of the virus and its variants, according to medical experts. Viral evolution is normal and will happen -- in fact, has already happened -- with or without a vaccine, virologists say. When…

Was an interim military U.S. government installed in the days after a fake staged inauguration of Joe Biden was broadcast, and were 80 to 140 members of Congress arrested by the National Guard in the middle of the night on January 25, 2021, and did U.S. and Taiwanese fighter jets win a war with the Chinese Communist Party in a…

Did Irish Health Service officials "admit" COVID-19 does not exist? No, that's not true: The claim rests on a purported Irish Health Service (HSE) letter the agency says does not exist. The person based her claim on a bit of sophistry: She declares that since she demanded and did not receive HSE documentation of lab isolation of the novel coronavirus,…

Was the inauguration cancelled; will Donald Trump remain in office; and will ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, MSNBC all lose their licenses? No, none of that is true: A made-up story containing those claims and predictions was written by a discredited conspiracy writer and published by 'Before It's News', a news platform that lets anyone write and publish what they…

Do PCR tests have an accuracy of 0% when more than 35 amplification cycles are used? No, that's not true: Multiple infectious disease experts confirm polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, accurately confirm the presence of the virus. At higher cycle thresholds, the virus may not be viable and a patient may not be…