Unsupported
Danish face mask study did not show that masks were ineffective at reducing spread of COVID-19; study was underpowered and results were inconclusive
Claim:
“Masks make no significant difference”; “Masks have no significant effect”
Flora Teoh
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Source: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Alex Berenson, Anthony Sabatini, Buck Sexton, Sharyl Attkisson, 2020-11-18 -
IncorrectArticle claiming that “masks don’t work” misleads readers by inaccurately interpreting a withdrawn study and a published study conducted on U.S. Marine Corps recruits
Claim:
“Pro-mask study withdrawn after virus spread in counties analyzed by researchers”; “masks don’t work”
Source: The Blaze, Daniel Horowitz, 2020-11-16 -
Inaccurate -
AccurateThe U.S. sees record numbers of daily new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in November 2020
Claim:
“There were 144,305 newly reported COVID-19 cases in the United States today. This beats the previous record of 133,819 cases reported on Monday, November 9. This is the 8th day in a row with over 100,000 cases reported.”
Source: NBC News, Twitter/X, Ali Velshi, 2020-11-11 -
IncorrectClaim that high PCR test sensitivity inflates COVID-19 cases wrongly conflates the issue of contagiousness with the presence of infection
Claim:
“Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared to acknowledge that large numbers of positive COVID-19 cases may arise from oversensitive tests that pick up mere fragments of the virus rather than active, viable infections. If true, many patients may have been receiving false-positive test results”
Source: Just the News, Daniel Payne, 2020-11-08 -
InaccurateA rise in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths starting in September 2020 contradicts the claim by Michael Yeadon that “the pandemic is fundamentally over in the U.K.”
Claim:
“the pandemic is fundamentally over in the U.K.”; “We now know that loads of people had prior immunity [...] I believe we are now firmly at community immunity.”; “Viruses don’t do waves.”
Source: talkRADIO, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Michael Yeadon, 2020-11-05 -
MisleadingThe number of COVID-19 deaths over the entire pandemic is higher in the U.S. than Europe, even when controlling for population size
Claim:
The U.S. has “a better handle on [COVID-19] than Europe”; “the disease is less deadly here than it is in most of Europe, based on case fatality data”
Source: Issues & Insights, I&I Editorial Board, 2020-10-29 -
InaccurateFewer flu cases observed in the start of this flu season, but Donald Trump Jr.’s tweet suggesting data manipulation is unsupported and cites inaccurate figures
Claim:
“We went from 75,000 flu deaths last year in America to almost 0 [...] do you think there may be allocation games being played to manipulate the truth?”
Source: Twitter/X, Donald Trump Jr., 2020-10-26 -
Lacks contextVolunteer who died in a COVID-19 vaccine trial in Brazil did not receive the vaccine
Claim:
“Coronavirus horror: Volunteer in Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine trial DIES”
Source: Health Nut News, The Daily Express, Bill McLoughlin, Erin Elizabeth, 2020-10-21 -
UnsupportedClaims that flu cases are used to inflate COVID-19 case counts are misleading, based on inaccurate numbers
Claim:
“Flu cases down by 95%” between 2019 and 2020 for the weeks 40 to 41; flu is being diagnosed as COVID-19, leading to fewer flu cases being recorded
Source: Facebook, Facebook users, 2020-10-18
