Health

11 January 2021

There are excess deaths in England and these PHE reports don’t prove otherwise

Reporting lags over Christmas distorted Public Health England’s estimates, which have since been updated.

11 January 2021

The laws introducing a third English lockdown do not make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory

Parliament did vote on new regulations on Wednesday, but these new rules didn’t make vaccines mandatory.

8 January 2021

Flawed comparisons between test and trace systems go viral

Claims suggesting the system in England costs vastly more than those in Wales and Ireland uses incomparable figures.

8 January 2021

More people are dying than usual at the moment

Dr John Lee claimed on talkRADIO that the number of deaths is below the long-term average, but this isn’t true.

7 January 2021

A satirical caption in a South African newspaper under a picture of a British woman getting the vaccine has caused confusion

The photo of a woman getting a Covid-19 vaccine has been used as evidence that the media is lying to people.

5 January 2021

Millions—not thousands—caught Covid last year

Doctors only report a small fraction of Covid infections through the NOIDs system.

23 December 2020

The government has awarded a contract to develop technology that proves you’ve recently had a negative Covid-19 test

This doesn’t mean that vaccination passports are planned.

23 December 2020

2020, the year QAnon aligned with the UK’s fears

Conspiracies that have come to define QAnon in 2020, such as distrust of authority and vaccine scepticism, have always been a big part of UK conspiracy culture.

22 December 2020

The needles in some syringes are supposed to ‘disappear’

Some syringes have a spring which retracts the needle once the dose is administered.

22 December 2020

Some on the Pfizer vaccine trials did get Bell’s palsy, but not more than we’d expect by chance

Four volunteers developed Bell’s palsy after getting a Covid-19 vaccine, but this doesn’t mean they are linked.

Fact checks

Analysis

Policy & Impact

About

There are excess deaths in England and these PHE reports don’t prove otherwise

The laws introducing a third English lockdown do not make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory

Flawed comparisons between test and trace systems go viral

More people are dying than usual at the moment

A satirical caption in a South African newspaper under a picture of a British woman getting the vaccine has caused confusion

Millions—not thousands—caught Covid last year

The government has awarded a contract to develop technology that proves you’ve recently had a negative Covid-19 test

2020, the year QAnon aligned with the UK’s fears

The needles in some syringes are supposed to ‘disappear’

Some on the Pfizer vaccine trials did get Bell’s palsy, but not more than we’d expect by chance

Full Fact fights bad information