Did the Denver Broncos sign Colin Kaepernick to play quarterback on Sunday, November 29, 2020, after all of the team's quarterbacks were ordered into quarantine for COVID-19 exposure? No, that's not true: The same NFL COVID-19 protocols t
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Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Masks, Gloves, Vaccines, And Synthetic Hand Soaps Do NOT Suppress Your Immune System
Do masks, gloves, vaccines, and synthetic handsoaps suppress human immune systems? No, that's not true: Public health experts and medical research say the opposite is the case and the claims were made with no evidence in a meme that sprea
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Medical Research Has NOT Shown Distance Does Not Matter In COVID-19 Transmission; Research Does NOT Contradict Air Transmission Hypotheses
Does medical research show COVID-19 is not transmitted in the air and that infection risk is unaffected by distance? No, neither claim is true: The claims ignore the accumulating recent evidence that airborne coronavirus is the major mode
Snopes→ Virus Keeps Black Friday Crowds Thin, Shoppers Shift Online
The CDC has labeled shopping in crowded stores during the holidays a “higher risk” activity and says people should limit any in-person shopping.
Health Feedback→ No evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause more severe disease; antibody-dependent enhancement has not been observed in clinical trials
SUMMARY A Facebook post claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine will lead to more severe disease, was published in November 2020 and went viral on the social media platform. Similar claims have also been published in other social media posts, like this o
Health Feedback→ Face masks, handwashing, and vaccination do not weaken the immune system, and are effective measures to reduce the spread of infectious diseases
REVIEW Widespread public health measures have been implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the spread of the disease. Posts like this meme on Instagram claiming that measures such as vaccination, wearing face masks or gloves, or f
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Many Studies Find Masks DO Work Against The Spread Of COVID-19
Do many studies find that cloth masks don't stop viruses like COVID? No, that's not true: An article making that claim does not cite any recent or specific studies showing masks don't work. To the contrary, the Centers for Disease Control
FactCheck.org→ Danish Study Doesn’t Prove Masks Don’t Work Against the Coronavirus
Q: Did a recent study in Denmark show that face masks are useless for COVID-19? A: No. The study found that face masks did not have a large protective effect for wearers — not that masks provide no protection at all or don’t offer benefits to
Truth or Fiction?→ ‘More People Have Died of Suicide This Year Than Corona’
On November 24 2020, a post on Reddit-clone TheDonald.win asserted that in 2020, “more people died of suicide this year than corona,” embedding the following tweet: Part one. pic.twitter.com/q5sNVq21GE — Dr. Ben Tapper (@DrBenTapp
Full Fact→ Danish study on mask efficacy only tells us half the story
An article in the Spectator by Professor Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine claimed that a new study from Denmark shows that wearing face masks “does not significantly reduce the rates of [Covid-19]
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: NO Evidence Georgia Governor And Secretary Of State Took Money From China To Steal Election From Trump
Did the governor and secretary of state in Georgia take money from China to steal the election from Donald Trump? No, there's zero proof that's true. Lead Stories reached out to the person making the accusation, radio host Hal Turner, to
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Vaccines Are NOT Linked To Autism; Science Shows No Causation
Are vaccines definitively linked to autism? No, that's not true: While some people believe this to be the case -- and are spreading their belief online in advance of release of vaccines to battle COVID-19 -- it remains just that, belief.
Truth or Fiction?→ How to Fight Disinformation: Introduction and Overview
This is the first of a series about how communities can fight back and protect themselves against weaponized disinformation. In 2015 and 2016, new and paranoid strains of political ideology took social media discourse by storm. The details varied by c
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Statistics Show COVID-19 Is NOT ‘The Greatest Hoax Ever Perpetrated On An Unsuspecting Public’ And Is NOT ‘Just Another Bad Flu’
Is Canadian pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson correct when he asserts that COVID-19 is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public" and "just another bad flu"? No, neither of those claims is true: Data from the CDC show th
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: It Is NOT True That The U.S. Government Has ‘Never Forced Anyone To Stop Smoking’ To Save Lives
Is it true that the U.S. government has "never forced anyone to stop smoking" to save lives? No, that's not true: There are many places where smoking is prohibited to preserve the health of others. The claims appeared from a post (archive
FactCheck.org→ Trump Misinformation on Georgia Ballot Rejections
The percentage of mail-in ballots rejected in Georgia due to signature issues this year was about the same as in the 2016 and 2018 general elections. Nevertheless, a tweet from President Donald Trump wrongly compared the number of ballots rejected for
FactCheck.org→ Meme Distorts Facts on Annual Death Statistics
Quick Take An image circulating on social media erroneously claims that the total number of deaths in the U.S. this year is significantly down compared to previous years. The meme — which implies COVID-19 restrictions weren’t needed —
Full Fact→ The number of deaths from flu and pneumonia is about what you would expect this year
A widely shared post on Facebook compares the number of deaths from diseases categorised as “flu & pneumonia” (which in practice means deaths from flu or pneumonia) in the first eight months of five different years. It shows that far fe
Full Fact→ It’s misleading to compare the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines and the death rate
A Facebook post has claimed that as the Moderna vaccine for Covid-19 is reporting 94.5% effectiveness, then it is less effective than the survival rate from the disease without a vaccine. The comparison with the reported effectiveness of the Moderna va
Health Feedback→ Danish face mask study did not show that masks were ineffective at reducing spread of COVID-19; study was underpowered and results were inconclusive
REVIEW Several reports on the findings of a face mask study conducted in Denmark[1], which was published in the scientific journal Annals of Internal Medicine, went viral on Facebook within a day of publication, receiving a total of more than 18,000
FactCheck.org→ Paul Misleads on Natural Infection and COVID-19 Vaccines
In a tweet, Sen. Rand Paul misleadingly suggested that immunity from “[n]aturally acquired” COVID-19 was better than that from a vaccine. But it’s not known how immunity from the two sources compares — and the entire point of a vaccine is t
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Suicide Rate Has NOT Increased ‘200% Since Lockdown’
Has the suicide rate increased 200% since COVID-19 lockdowns started in March? No, that's not true: Dr. Rajeev Ramchand, a top suicide prevention expert at the National Institute of Mental Health, told Lead Stories he has not seen any dat
FactCheck.org→ Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff
In the first TV ads of the runoff campaign that could help decide the balance of the Senate, Republican Sen. David Perdue warned his opponent would “radically change America,” while Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff accused his opponent of d
Health Feedback→ Non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns and wearing face masks, are effective measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission, contrary to claims in viral video
REVIEW This video, published on 13 November 2020 by the student activism organization Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), features the historian Tom Woods in a 7 November symposium in Texas. In it, Woods presents the COVID-19 pandemic and the public
Full Fact→ The number of people dying right now is not the same as in any other year
“I’ll give you the absolute numbers today and people can then take that away and make their own decisions about how scared to be. So in terms of people actually infected today, it’s probably around 1% of the population. But the vast
Full Fact→ The infection fatality rate for Covid-19 is higher than 0.1%
In a now-deleted tweet, writer and commentator Toby Young claimed that a study reported in the Daily Mail shows that Covid-19’s infection fatality rate (IFR) is 0.1%, a figure comparable to seasonal flu. This tweet incorrectly cited the stu
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump’s Disinformation Spree After Losing Election Propelled by Social Media
In the days after a resounding popular vote loss to former United States Vice President Joe Biden, sitting president Donald Trump advanced numerous conspiracy theories before beginning to deny the results of the election outright. The first set of con
Truth or Fiction?→ Trump’s Disinformation Spree After Losing Election Propelled by Social Media
In the days after a resounding popular vote loss to former United States Vice President Joe Biden, sitting president Donald Trump advanced numerous conspiracy theories before beginning to deny the results of the election outright. The first set of con
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Theft At Philadelphia Warehouse Does NOT Mean Election Is ‘Illegitimate’
Does a theft at a Philadelphia warehouse mean the 2020 election should be considered "illegitimate"? No, that's not true: The theft of a laptop and USB drives had "no impact whatsoever on the election," according to a spokesman for the Ph
Health Feedback→ Although fetal cell lines are used to grow viruses for some COVID-19 vaccines, the cells are not part of the vaccines
REVIEW A Facebook video published on 15 November 2020 claims that “aborted fetal tissue” is present in the COVID-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and that the vaccine can change a person’s DNA. Shared by the anti-vacci
The Dispatch→ Fact Check: Addressing Yet More Claims About Dominion Voting Systems
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Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Dominion Software Is NOT Developed by Engineers from Venezuela And Votes Are NOT Sent to Servers in Spain
Is Dominion Voting Systems software developed by engineers from Venezuela and were votes sent to servers in Spain? No, that's not true. Government and independent election technology experts confirm what Dominion's spokesperson says: Domi
Full Fact→ The Covid-19 recovery rate is not 99.9%
A number of posts on social media have made comparisons between the reported effectiveness of the potential Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and reported Covid-19 recovery rate. Text on the posts reads: “Pfizer vaccine is 90% effective Virus has 99.
Health Feedback→ Pfizer is part of Operation Warp Speed, a partnership to produce and distribute a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, but it developed a vaccine without direct Warp funding
REVIEW In early November 2020, the U.S. company Pfizer and the German company BioNTech announced that their vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2 showed an efficacy rate of 90% during clinical trials. Considering that COVID-19, the disease caused by
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Pictures Do NOT Show The Family Of A Record-Setting Fertile Woman
Did a woman in the 1700s give birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets (a total of 69 children) in just 40 years, with the same man fathering all the children? And is this a photo of the very large f
Full Fact→ There’s no evidence that mercury-based chemicals in a Covid-19 vaccine would cause harm
Our readers have asked us to check claims that new Covid-19 vaccines contain enough mercury to cause brain damage.It is likely this question refers to thiomersal, a mercury-based chemical, but this is no longer used in most standard vaccines in the UK,
Health Feedback→ Claim that high PCR test sensitivity inflates COVID-19 cases wrongly conflates the issue of contagiousness with the presence of infection
REVIEW An article published by Just the News on 8 November 2020 claims that “many patients may have been receiving false-positive test results” and that “the numbers of COVID-19 cases reported by public health authorities and major COVID track
Health Feedback→ Wearing face masks helps reduce the spread of COVID-19, but it only confers partial protection and should be combined with additional public health measures
REVIEW An article published by The Federalist on 29 October 2020 claims that face masks are ineffective at reducing the spread of COVID-19. In support of its claim, the article cites several scientific studies and shows 12 graphs comparing COVID-19
FactCheck.org→ Trump Baselessly Alleges COVID-19 Vaccine Announcement Was Delayed
In a series of tweets, President Donald Trump claimed — without evidence — that the pharma company Pfizer and his own Food and Drug Administration purposely held off on releasing positive interim results about a COVID-19 vaccine candidate u
Full Fact→ No evidence aluminium in vaccines causes Alzheimer’s disease
Our readers have asked us to check claims that aluminium used in a new Covid-19 vaccine—or any other vaccine—can cause Alzheimer’s disease. This is not correct. Small amounts of aluminium have been used in vaccines for almost 100 year