Fact Check: Klaus Schwab NOT Hospitalized After Vaccine Reaction, Did NOT 'Pull Out', Will Speak At Davos Event

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Fact Check: Klaus Schwab NOT Hospitalized After Vaccine Reaction, Did NOT 'Pull Out', Will Speak At Davos Event 'Satire'

Was Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), hospitalized after a bad reaction to a vaccine and does that mean he will not be speaking at the World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland, in mid-January 2023? No, that's not true: The site putting out the story has a disclaimer that says it publishes "satirical stories about issues that affect conservatives." Schwab has not pulled out from the event. According to the WEF website, Schwab is scheduled to speak at the opening press conference on January 17, 2023.

When contacted by email the WEF confirmed to Lead Stories that:

Professor Klaus Schwab is in excellent health and will open tomorrow our Annual Meeting in Davos.

Update: there now is actual video of Schwab speaking during an awards ceremony at this year's conference:

The false claim appeared in an article published by the Vancouver Times on January 15, 2023, titled "Klaus Schwab hospitalized after bad reaction to Covid jab" (archived here) which opened:

Founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Klaus Schwab has been hospitalized after suffering a severe and unexpected reaction to the Pfizer Covid vaccine. As a result, he will not speaking at this year's event.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Klaus Schwab hospitalized after bad reaction to Covid jab

Founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Klaus Schwab has been hospitalized after suffering a severe and unexpected reaction to the Pfizer Covid vaccine. As a result, he will not speaking at this year's event. The WEF's annual meeting is happening between Jan. 16 - 20 and will be held in its usual location of [...]

The Vancouver Times is a website that has published several made-up stories in the past, claiming on its "About" page (archived here) to be a satirical publication (despite the complete lack of discernible humor):

About Us

Vancouver Times is the most trusted source for satire on the West Coast. We write satirical stories about issues that affect conservatives.

The site contains a mix of articles copied from other sites and made-up stories, often hoaxes about the death or arrest of people who were recently in the news. The made-up stories usually contain embedded tweets or links to articles from real news organizations to appear more credible. Another common theme of the made-up stories is that many of them claim there is some sort of media blackout in effect to explain the fact that the site is the only outlet reporting certain details.

The site claims its main author is named "Jason Pires," the same name as an existing Canadian TV journalist. That Jason Pires has denied (archived here) being involved with the site:

It has come to my attention that someone is using my name to market a startup 'news' site. I am in no way affiliated with this site and am working to have my name removed from this site.

Updates:

  • 2023-01-17T07:24:40Z 2023-01-17T07:24:40Z
    Added video showing Schwab speaking during an awards ceremony at the 2023 Davos conference of the World Economic Forum

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Lead Stories is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers who are fighting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the alliance here.


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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