Corrections Log

This is a record of corrections we've made in the past 3 years.

• 17 May 2023 Government website makes percentage error on National Insurance rise
  The word “tax” was deleted from the ‘our verdict’ box to make it clearer that many people will face a 10% rise in the amount of National Insurance they pay, not their tax bill as a whole.
• 25 Apr 2023 Advice to ‘NEVER’ give babies water is missing context
  This article was edited to clarify the wording in the subheading, and to remove a rating on a social media video.
• 25 Apr 2023 The UK is not being flooded with contaminated drugs
  We corrected the description of 'men' to 'males' when talking about leading causes of death across the UK.
• 24 Apr 2023 Buzz Aldrin didn’t ‘admit’ he never went to the Moon
  This article has been updated to amend our reference to the amount of photographs and video footage gathered during Mr Aldrin’s time on the Moon’s surface.
• 13 Apr 2023 The Government is not expecting tree planting to almost halve by 2025
  We’ve corrected this piece to show that we received comment from the DEFRA, not the DESNZ.
• 16 Mar 2023 Research on long term effects of childhood infections misreported
  This article has been corrected to say that the most recent count of pneumonia deaths is around 40 times the figure the Sun originally reported. This article had initially reported it as being over 10 times larger.
• 6 Mar 2023 Oxford residents won’t require a permit to ‘leave their district’
  This article has been corrected to clarify that the proposed 15 minute neighbourhood plan is being considered by Oxford City Council, not Oxfordshire County Council.
• 2 Mar 2023 PA Media corrects error in reporting on research for prostate cancer test
  This article previously said that the PSA test did not have a high “false positive” rate, but this should have read “false negative”. We have corrected the name of PA Media, which is no longer called the Press Association. We had previously stated that the published scientific article had been updated, but this is not the case. This article has also been updated to confirm the Daily Mail has now made a correction.
• 11 Nov 2022 MPs' vaccine debate fact checked
  This article was updated to correct a misspelling of Andrew Bridgen's name.
• 8 Nov 2022 ‘New’ UK trade deals don’t account for ‘over £800 billion worth of new global trade’
  This article has been corrected to say £814 billion, not £816 billion, was the value of bilateral trade between the UK and countries it has a trade deal with in 2021.
• 27 Oct 2022 How might the Retained EU Law Bill affect our right to watch the Olympics for free?
  We’ve corrected this piece to clarify that while the power to designate listed events is protected as primary domestic legislation, the list itself may fall under the scope of the REUL Bill.
• 19 Oct 2022 Wigan ‘diaper give away’ seems not to be genuine
  This article has been updated to clarify that the Facebook post did not give a time for the event.
• 20 Sep 2022 Did several billion people watch the Queen’s funeral?
  We’ve updated this fact check to reflect the fact that the 5.1 billion estimate was used on BBC Radio Stoke on 20 September, after the figure began circulating online. Many thanks to the Full Fact reader who alerted us to this.
• 6 Sep 2022 Boris Johnson’s kettle comments taken out of context
  We’ve corrected this piece to state that Boris Johnson’s speech was made on 1 September.
• 26 Aug 2022 Out-of-date map showing high GB electricity prices compared to Europe re-emerges
  We’ve updated this piece to reflect the correct abbreviation of megawatt hour (MWh)
• 26 Aug 2022 The EU has not set lower gas price cap than the UK
  We’ve updated this piece to reflect the correct abbreviation of megawatt hour (MWh)
• 19 Jul 2022 Rishi Sunak pledge to review ‘2,400’ remaining EU laws doesn’t tell the full story
  This article has been corrected to clarify that 2,006 is the number of EU laws which the government dashboard shows as remaining unchanged—ie, they have not yet been amended, repealed or replaced.
• 14 Jul 2022 Poll saying 5% of Northern Ireland trusts UK government is about protocol specifically
  The headline of this article previously said the poll said 5% didn't trust the government, which was incorrect. We've now corrected it.
• 14 Jul 2022 Claim two-thirds of child asylum seekers are actually adults is false
  This article has been updated to highlight the misleading headline used by the Express and to explain more fully the potential issues with statistics on age dispute cases.
• 13 Jul 2022 The EU did not completely outlaw use of imperial measures in the UK
  The name of the European Economic Community was corrected.
• 12 Jul 2022 What payouts do ministers receive when they leave office?
  This article has been corrected to account for further errors that we have since identified in the Liberal Democrats’ analysis.
• 1 Jul 2022 Average salary of workers involved in RMT national rail strike is not £44,000
  We have corrected this piece to reflect that a small number of drivers were balloted and did participate in the RMT strike.
• 15 Jun 2022 War in Ukraine has contributed to global shortages of certain products
  We have updated this post to accurately present figures for Ukraine and Russia’s grain exports.
• 14 Jun 2022 Research didn’t find contraceptive pill reduces risk of suicide
  We have updated this article to reflect the exact wording used in The Sun’s headline throughout.
• 13 Jun 2022 EU rules didn’t ‘ban’ crown symbols on pint glasses
  This article was corrected to make clear in the conclusion box that the crown symbol could only be used decoratively after 2006.
• 9 Jun 2022 Reports that ‘most teachers’ are suffering from depression are based on a self-selecting survey
  This article has been edited to change the name "Press Association" to "PA".
• 25 Apr 2022 Keir Starmer wrong to say families will be £2,620 worse off this year
  We have updated this article with a more detailed explanation of different independent estimates of the fall in household disposable income in 2022/23, all of which are significantly lower than Labour’s estimate. A previous calculation that the average household could be £700 worse off was based on ONS figures for equivalised median income, rather than non-equivalised mean income as above. We also overemphasised this estimate and did not explain the uncertainty clearly enough.
• 25 Apr 2022 Labour election leaflets and ads wrongly claiming families are ‘£2,620 worse off’
  We have updated this article with a more detailed explanation of different independent estimates of the fall in household disposable income in 2022/23, all of which are significantly lower than Labour’s estimate. A previous calculation that the average household could be £700 worse off was based on ONS figures for equivalised median income,rather than non-equivalised mean income as above. We also overemphasised this estimate and did not explain the uncertainty clearly enough.
• 21 Apr 2022 Viral pensions post has its maths all wrong
  A previous version of this article incorrectly said the Facebook post had claimed you’d have £900 million if you invested £2,250 each year for 50 years with a 5% interest rate. The post actually said you’d have close to £900,000.
• 7 Apr 2022 No evidence for MP’s claims ‘tens of thousands of people’ have ‘suffered severe damage’ from vaccines
  This article previously quoted data as of 16 March about Yellow Card reports and suspected reactions for the Pfizer vaccine only, not all Covid-19 vaccines as claimed. The data for 9 March reflected the number of reports relating to the Pfizer vaccine and all Covid-19 vaccines, not the number of reports and suspected reactions across all vaccines as claimed. The figures have been corrected to reflect the total number of Yellow Card reports and suspected reactions following all Covid-19 vaccines.
• 1 Mar 2022 Has the NHS had its budget reduced by £30 billion?
  This article was corrected to include two paragraphs and a chart that were not included on first publication, due to an administrative error.
• 24 Feb 2022 Test and Trace money wasn’t just spent on an app
  This article previously said that £76 million was spent on the contact tracing app in 2020/21 as stated by the NAO's report. This was the budget for the app, while the spend was £35 million.
• 23 Feb 2022 GP’s article overstates the number of Covid-19 deaths in children
  A typing error was fixed to correct "January 2021" to "January 2022".
• 1 Feb 2022 Germany has spent far more than £48m on test and trace
  This article previously included a crude estimate for part of the cost of the German system—the cost of testing up to March 2021. That calculation was wrong, because it compared figures for two different sorts of Covid tests, so we have now removed the estimate from this article. We have also added additional information on the likely cost of the German contact-tracing app and rapid antigen tests.
• 31 Jan 2022 PM misleads on employment figures, again
  This article originally said the Daily Express had also made the claim being discussed, when it said “400,000 jobs have been added since the start of the pandemic”. The Express told Full Fact it was not referring to the number of people in employment, but to the increase in the number of job vacancies compared to the pre-pandemic level, which the ONS puts at 462,000.
• 28 Jan 2022 An Instagram post underestimates Covid-19 deaths among younger people
  "A sentence was changed to clarify that the FOI response showed deaths due to Covid where there was no pre-existing condition listed on the death certificate."
• 21 Jan 2022 The Covid-19 vaccines don’t have ‘negative efficacy’
  A use of the word "underestimates" was corrected to "overestimates".
• 18 Jan 2022 David Icke makes false claim that vaccines are ‘gene therapy’
  The original version of this article stated that asymptomatic Covid-19 cases accounted for a “huge” number of overall cases. This has been changed to say that while asymptomatic illness does exist and has been an important factor in how Covid-19 spreads, evidence of the proportion of asymptomatic cases is mixed.
• 14 Jan 2022 Doctor who challenged Sajid Javid made misleading claims about vaccines
  We updated this article to correct a typo in Mr Javid's name and the date in the second paragraph.
• 14 Jan 2022 Doctor who challenged Sajid Javid made misleading claims about vaccines
  The article originally repeated the claim and conclusion boxes. This has been corrected.
• 13 Jan 2022 Facebook posts falsely advertise weight loss pills as endorsed by judges on US Dragons’ Den
  This article originally repeated the claim in the conclusion box. This has been corrected.
• 25 Nov 2021 Peston claim that immigration is top public concern based on his own findings
  We corrected this article to note the claim was made on 24 November.
• 4 Nov 2021 NHSX website doesn’t reveal vaccine passport roll out
  This article was corrected to reflect the fact that the COVID NHS Pass in Wales also allows individuals to present a lateral flow result.
• 5 Oct 2021 Free paper repeats falsehoods on deaths following vaccination
  This article previously said that 1,470 deaths had been reported as of July 2020. It should have said July 2021. We have corrected this and added the most up-to-date data.
• 27 Sep 2021 A survey of diversity in children’s books is flawed
  We have deleted a section about the potential number of children's publishers in the UK, because a figure we quoted was from a source that wasn’t comparable and included some companies which were not publishers, and we have not been able to find more reliable data.
• 27 Sep 2021 MP makes unevidenced claims about vaccine damage
  An earlier version of this article stated that the debate took place on 17 September. This has now been corrected.
• 17 Sep 2021 New figures on healthcare workers' suicides should be treated with caution
  A sentence was amended to clarify that the delay in death registration applies to England and Wales.
• 17 Sep 2021 Covid-19 is almost certainly killing more people than suicide
  A sentence was amended to clarify that the delay in death registration applies to England and Wales.
• 14 Sep 2021 Germany has not stopped using Covid-19 vaccines
  The conclusion to this fact check was corrected to state the German government suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccines to under 60s, not over 60s.
• 3 Sep 2021 Facebook post makes incorrect claims about TV licence fee non-payment
  We’ve updated this article to include more information supplied to us by the DCMS committee. We have now explained Mr Knight’s estimate, clarified that it related only to part of the total amount lost to non-payment, and changed the headline to remove the statement that he was wrong.
• 25 Aug 2021 Why the government recommends having 6 months left on passports to visit Europe
  This article has been corrected to reflect the fact that the policy which allowed some time left on your old passport to be added to your new passport was scrapped in 2018.
• 25 Aug 2021 Higher deportation rates don’t necessarily demonstrate ‘disproportionate targeting’ of Jamaicans
  We have clarified that when talking about the deportation rates among people from the EU, we were referring to the number of EU criminals who were deported under the 2007 Borders Act, not the total number of EU criminals who were deported which is far higher.
• 20 Aug 2021 How media reporting of modelling has shaped our understanding of the pandemic
  Correction: we corrected this article to note a ‘prediction interval’ is a technical term which does not intend to mean the model is a ‘prediction’.
• 22 Jul 2021 Results of Covid-19 vaccine trials have been published and peer-reviewed
  We corrected an earlier description of the MHRA in this article because while it has approved some Covid-19 vaccines across the UK others are approved for use in Northern Ireland via the EMA.
• 13 Jul 2021 Video in a car shares misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines
  This piece has been corrected as the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has now been granted conditional marketing authorisation. In addition there have been changes made to reflect which regulatory bodies have issued authorisation for different parts of the UK.
• 10 May 2021 We know of one successful conviction of a police officer for the killing of someone in police custody since 1971
  Since we first wrote this article, a reader got in touch to point us to the example of Sergeant Alwyn Sawyer, having been convicted in 1986 for the manslaughter of Henry Foley in his custody.
• 4 May 2021 Telegraph headline linking depression and social media isn't backed up by article
  We have corrected an error in this article as the birth years of the cohorts mentioned in the third paragraph were in the wrong order.
• 19 Apr 2021 HS2 will not cost Scotland £17 billion
  We've edited this article to clarify that HS2 is deemed to benefit England and Wales for the purpose of Barnett calculations.
• 19 Apr 2021 There are no human cells in the AstraZeneca vaccine, and it won’t give you a chimpanzee virus
  We have updated this article to more clearly describe the role of the viral vector in carrying the genetic instructions for making the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein rather than the spike protein itself.
• 13 Apr 2021 The weekend Covid-19 death figures need more context
  An earlier version of this article wrongly stated the date as Saturday 10 April 2020. This has now been updated.
• 1 Apr 2021 House price growth has outstripped income growth—but not by much
  An earlier version of this article stated that the post was true, because its figures were broadly correct. However, it did not explain that the post had compared inflation-adjusted growth in income with absolute price growth in houses, which is an important piece of missing context. This has now been updated. 
• 31 Mar 2021 The Covid-19 recovery rate is not 99.9%
  We corrected errors in the description of the recovery rate set out in the social media posts.
• 26 Mar 2021 Burnt-out police car in Bristol protests was not fake
  This piece was corrected to confirm that this Bristol protest took place on 21 March 2021.
• 8 Mar 2021 Test and Trace has much larger budget than Mars Perseverance expedition
  This piece was updated to clarify that the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter cost about $85 million.
• 24 Feb 2021 Covid vaccine hasn't caused increase in care home deaths
  This article was updated to reflect the fact that care home vaccinations in England started to be rolled out closer to Christmas.
• 19 Feb 2021 Did EU exports really drop 68% in January?
  This article has been corrected to include details on the increase in the number of empty outbound HGVs at the beginning of the year, to provide more context around the Cabinet Office’s 73% figure.
• 15 Feb 2021 EU facts behind the claims: borders
  This article was updated to note that there are no border checks at the Irish border.
• 11 Feb 2021 Evidence doesn’t show 20,000 people ‘sick with Covid’ fail to self-isolate every day
  We corrected this article to clarify that Baroness Harding appeared in front of the Science and Technology Committee.
• 22 Jan 2021 Claims about the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine ingredients lack evidence
  We previously wrote that we had not found evidence of 70% of people having antibodies against PEG. A reader pointed us towards such a study, and we have now included reference to that paper.
• 21 Dec 2020 Can we believe the lockdown sceptics?
  This article has been corrected to say Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, not the Daily Mail.
• 18 Dec 2020 Survey doesn’t show voters ditching Conservatives over bike lanes
  This piece was corrected to include results of the survey which was published on the Fair Fuel UK blog.
• 13 Dec 2020 Cambridge Covid-19 test results don’t mean PCR tests are inaccurate
  The ratio of true to false positives used in the example about the speed camera has been corrected.
• 8 Dec 2020 Covid-19 may not be a “high consequence infectious disease”, but it is a real emergency
  This article was corrected with the figure for deaths across the UK in 2018, not the figure for deaths in England and Wales.
• 8 Dec 2020 The new vaccination card is not a ‘Covid passport’
  This article was corrected to include the fact that there is a designated space for a name at the top of the card
• 19 Nov 2020 The Covid-19 recovery rate is not 99.9%
  Correction: This article initially used figures for the number of people who died where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate in any capacity, when we meant to use the figure for the number of people who died where Covid-19 was noted as the underlying cause of death.
• 19 Nov 2020 The number of people dying right now is not the same as in any other year
  This piece was updated to clarify the finding that 86% of people who tested positive for the Covid-19 virus did not have symptoms of Covid-19. This only covered possible symptoms on the day of their test, though some may have had symptoms at some other time.
• 16 Nov 2020 Testing: Where are we?
  This piece initially referred to RNA PCR tests as antigen tests which is commonplace but not strictly accurate.
• 13 Nov 2020 PTFE in masks does not pose a health risk, unless you get it very hot
  A previous version of this article used PTFE and Teflon interchangeably which is not accurate as not all Teflon-branded products contain PTFE and not all PTFE is Teflon. The article has been updated to reflect this.
• 5 Nov 2020 No, we are not on track for a normal number of deaths this year
  Originally this article said that if you were to model the UK's death toll assuming the rest of the year is the same as an average year, the total would be higher than any year since 1979. It should have actually read since 1985.
• 3 Nov 2020 Challenging someone for not wearing a face mask isn’t against the Equality Act
  This story has been updated to clarify that members of the public should not challenge people for not wearing face coverings.
• 29 Oct 2020 No, we are not on track for a normal number of deaths this year
  We corrected a production error that swapped the position of the third claim and our verdict. (The text remains unchanged.)
• 28 Oct 2020 The asteroid which might enter Earth’s atmosphere on 2 November will not “hit” Earth
  This article has been corrected to clarify how the 0.26% fatality rate was calculated.
• 21 Oct 2020 London Mayor candidate wrong to claim Covid-19 pandemic is no worse than a flu season
  This article was updated to clarify that Mr Kurten is standing for mayor as an independent candidate.
• 14 Oct 2020 These figures for non-Covid deaths aren’t accurate
  Correction: An earlier version of this article said that 12,653 people died of a stroke in England in 2019. This only included people who died of a stroke where it was not specified whether the stroke was caused by a haemorrhage or an infarction (tissue death resulting from a failure of blood supply).
• 23 Sep 2020 Punishment for breaking social distancing and possessing indecent images of children can vary
  We've changed this article to correct the text in the claim field, which was the wrong way around.
• 24 Aug 2020 Lowering the state pension age for women won't create four million jobs for young people
  We corrected an error in the final line of this article which referred to the state pension being lower rather than the state pension age.
• 19 Aug 2020 Why this poll gives a misleading view on how many people the public think Covid-19 has killed
  The original version of this article said that the poll question included a preset list of answers starting at 0% and 1% for respondents to choose from. It suggested that this may have led some people to overestimate the true percentage of around 0.1% by not allowing for answers in between 0% and 1%. This was incorrect. The poll allowed people to enter whatever figure they wanted, including decimal points. We apologise for the error.
• 14 Aug 2020 Have 200,000 nurses quit the NHS?
  The date of the claim has been corrected to 2019, instead of 2018.
• 28 Jul 2020 Changes to government Covid-19 death data won’t make a big difference to the overall death count
  This story was updated to clarify that the PHE death data is still published online.
• 24 Jul 2020 What are the new lockdown rules on social distancing?
  This piece has been updated to clarify the distinction between the law and the guidance on gatherings.
• 21 Jul 2020 This is what we know about the government loan to pay slave owners compensation after slavery was abolished in 1833
  We originally said the details of how the government raised the loan were unclear, but we have now included information on the banking syndicate that raised a large proportion of the loan money.
• 9 Jul 2020 Leicester going back into lockdown has nothing to do with 5G
  We've corrected a typo which said that 5G has nothing to do with the symptoms of 5G. It has nothing to do with the symptoms of Covid-19.
• 3 Jul 2020 What do we know about Covid-19 inequalities among people from minority ethnic groups?
  We corrected an error in this article which stated that people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had about 200% greater risk of death, among confirmed Covid-19 cases, compared to White British people after adjustment for sex, age, deprivation and region. We also corrected an error which wrongly stated the date on which the graphs were produced.
• 22 Jun 2020 A Norwegian-British research paper doesn’t claim the virus causing Covid-19 was man-made
  We corrected typos in the spelling of the word Norwegian.
• 1 Jun 2020 Patent application 060606 does not mention inserting microchips into the body
  Correction: In a previous version of this post we referred to patent application W0/2020/060606 as a patent. It has not yet been granted, so we have updated our article to reflect that.