The needles in some syringes are supposed to ‘disappear’
Various posts on social media show news footage of a Covid-19 vaccination being given to a patient. After the vaccine is apparently administered, it appears as if the needle has disappeared.
Some have suggested that this is evidence that these patients did not in fact receive a vaccine. This is untrue.
The footage appeared on BBC News and the BBC confirmed to us that it was taken at Backus Hospital in Connecticut, USA.
The syringes used appear to have retractable needles. These syringes have a spring at their tip, and when the vaccination dose is fully administered, the spring automatically retracts the needle down into the barrel of the syringe. These sorts of syringes reduce the risk of exposure to potentially contaminated needles, and reduce the risk of injury.
You can watch a demonstration of how they work here.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because these syringes are designed to retract the needle once the dose has been administered.