Viral video includes lots of false claims and half truths

10 May 2021
What was claimed

There’s a do not resuscitate across the UK on the elderly, on the disabled.

Our verdict

Guidance from regulatory bodies explicitly says that do not resuscitate orders should not use a ‘blanket approach’. The preliminary report from a Care Quality Commission investigation into the use of DNACPRs during the Covid-19 pandemic found examples of unacceptable and inappropriate DNACPRs being made at the start of the pandemic, but stated that there was no evidence to suggest it continued as a widespread problem.

What was claimed

This is an experimental injection, it hasn’t had phase three trials completed.

Our verdict

Analyses of data from phase three trials for all three Covid-19 vaccines authorised for use in the UK have been published in peer-reviewed studies in medical journals.

What was claimed

Covid-19 vaccines have caused thousands upon thousands of life changing adverse reactions.

Our verdict

Reports of possible events that have occurred around the time of vaccination are made to the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme. Just because they’ve been reported does not mean that they have been proven to be caused by the vaccine.

What was claimed

The government knew before the Covid-19 vaccines roll-out that they would kill and maim and issued a tender for a surveillance system to monitor deaths.

Our verdict

This may refer to either an artificial intelligence contract the government awarded to monitor adverse drug events or the Yellow Card scheme which was established in 1964. In either case both are intended to ensure drug safety, and reports of adverse events are not necessarily linked to the Covid-19 vaccines.

What was claimed

The Covid-19 pandemic was planned and was facilitated by the use of false positive PCR tests.

Our verdict

We have repeatedly debunked the conspiracy that the pandemic was a planned operation and PCR tests have a high rate of accuracy.

A video shared on Facebook featuring influencers Kate Shemirani and Kevin Corbett makes a number of false claims and has been viewed thousands of times. 

The clip contains many claims that are not backed up by evidence, or that don’t provide the full context. 

This article does not discuss every claim made in the video, but here is a look at several of them. 

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“We know there’s a do not resuscitate across the UK on the elderly... on the disabled”

The regulatory bodies for doctors and nurses, the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council, say that Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation orders (DNACPRs) should be made on a patient-by-patient basis, based on the balance of risks and benefits, and consider an individuals’ own views and values. They should be discussed with the individual if they have capacity, and discussed with their legal proxy with appropriate authority (or closest person to them) if they do not. 

There are times when cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may not be clinically appropriate. For example, when there is very little chance of successfully restarting someone’s breathing or heartbeat or restoring circulation, or because it is against an individuals’ wishes. If this is the case, and there is time in advance, a DNACPR may be put in place. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS leadership and regulatory bodies including the Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association, the Care Provider Alliance, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the Royal College of Nursing and the Nursing and Midwifery Council issued statements reasserting the importance of individualised decisions around resuscitation, and the need to communicate appropriately with patients and their families or representatives. 

There were reported cases and concerns that during the Covid-19 pandemic some DNACPRs were inappropriately placed and conducted, or poorly communicated. Concerns were raised particularly around examples involving people with disabilities and people living in care homes. 

There has been a CQC investigation into this and its interim report found that “There is evidence of unacceptable and inappropriate DNACPRs being made at the start of the pandemic.” It added that it was looking into the scale of this, and cases where inappropriate DNACPRs may remain in place but also added there had been a quick response to highlight the issue and that there was no evidence to suggest it had “continued as a widespread problem”.

“This is an experimental injection, it hasn’t had phase three trials completed”

We have written about similar claims referring to the Covid-19 vaccines before

Analyses of the data on safety and efficacy from phase three trials for all of the Covid-19 vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca and Moderna) which have been given temporary authorisation in the UK have been published in peer-reviewed articles in medical journals such as The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Data on the long term protection and safety of the vaccines will continue to be collected over the coming years, and for this reason the completion dates for the trials are set in the future.

Phase three trials are large trials in thousands of people to determine vaccine safety and efficacy, and are the last stage before a vaccine is put forward to healthcare agencies for authorisation and licensing. 

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulation Authority (MHRA), which approved the vaccines in the UK and conducts ongoing routine safety monitoring, has said that “Following widespread use of these vaccines across the UK, the vast majority of suspected adverse reaction reports so far confirm the safety profile seen in clinical trials.” 

It added: “The expected benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects.”

“[Covid-19 vaccines have caused] thousands upon thousands of life changing adverse reactions”

We have written about this before

The UK’s Yellow Card scheme collects and monitors safety concerns involving medicines and medical devices such as suspected or potential side effects. This relies on voluntary reporting from medics and members of the public.

This system is monitored by the MHRA. The Yellow Card scheme was established in 1964 following the Thalidomide birth defect scandal. Its aim is to detect adverse effects of all medicines, not just those related to Covid-19. 

In the UK, as of 28 April 2021, there have been 54,139 Yellow Cards reported for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, 160,543 reported for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, 683 for the Moderna vaccine and 574 with an unspecified vaccine brand.

As explained by the MHRA “the nature of Yellow Card reporting means that reported events are not always proven side effects. Some events may have happened anyway, regardless of vaccination. This is particularly the case when millions of people are vaccinated, and especially when most vaccines are being given to the most elderly people and people who have underlying illness.” 

Therefore, it is important to remember that an adverse event reported to the Yellow Card scheme may have happened for many other reasons, and not as a result of the vaccine. 

On 7 April 2021, the MHRA issued a statement advising on a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and a very rare and specific type of blood clot seen in the context of low platelets. As a precaution, because of the balance of risks from Covid-19 for young people, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation now advise that people under the age of 40 in the UK should be offered an alternative Covid-19 vaccine. 

They have said that: “Adverse events following the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are extremely rare and, for the vast majority of people, the benefits of preventing serious illness and death far outweigh any risks.”   

“The government knew [Covid-19 vaccines were] genocidal because it knew ahead, in the autumn, ahead of the rollout of the vaccines, that these vaccines would kill and maim because it issued a tender to get surveillance systems for that effect. It used the words ‘expected high volume of deaths’”

It’s not entirely clear what “surveillance systems” Kevin Corbett is referring to, but it may be the Yellow Card scheme described above.

It’s also not clear what tender is being referred to either. Using the Contracts Finder tender search engine, there are many small and large government contracts that aim to determine the impact of Covid-19.

It’s possible that he was referring to a contract to monitor Covid-19 adverse drug reactions which the MHRA awarded last year. The contract award notice described this as: “an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details from the ADRs’ reaction text are missed.” It did not mention an expected high volume of deaths as claimed.

This is part of standard monitoring processes, and as we've written before, reported adverse reactions are not necessarily the same as side effects and may be unrelated to the vaccine. 

“This was a planned epidemic based on false positive PCR testing”

We have already debunked claims that governments and industry conspired to plan the coronavirus pandemic. The theory was popularised by an online video called “Plandemic” which perpetuated a number of mistruths about Covid-19.

As we have written before, the exact false positive rate for PCR testing is extremely small with the accuracy of positive tests “very close to 100%” according to the Office for National Statistics.  

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