Many U.S. athletes have been vaccinated against COVID-19 without any adverse effects. But a conservative outlet has cited a list of supposedly vaccine-injured athletes to claim “there may be something wrong with the vaccine.” There’s no proof that the listed athletes — most of them are actually retired — were harmed by the vaccines.
President Joe Biden restricted travel from eight African nations on Nov. 26 to slow the spread of the omicron variant. Conservative commentators have misleadingly cited a Biden tweet from last year to claim he was critical of “the same travel ban” implemented by then-President Donald Trump. But that tweet was about a Trump immigration order directed at predominantly Muslim countries.
Kyle Rittenhouse said that he went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to defend a car dealership during protests against police brutality in August 2020. He was not there to defend his grandparents’ gas station, as a viral social media post falsely claims. He was not related to the family that owns the car dealership.
The vast majority of people who have died with COVID-19 had other medical conditions that put them at risk of severe disease, or other conditions caused by COVID-19. But internet posts misinterpret data about those conditions to falsely claim that Italy has reduced its count of COVID-19 deaths. It hasn’t.
The COVID-19 death rate for unvaccinated people has been significantly higher than for vaccinated people in both Israel and the U.S. Despite that, conservative commentator Ben Swann makes the false claim in a video that Israeli data prove vaccines aren’t effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths. But the charts he uses don’t distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.
The number of U.S. plane accidents has been about the same this year as it was last year. But posts on social media falsely claim that there has been a significant increase due to pilot reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines. The Federal Aviation Administration says it has seen “no evidence of aircraft accidents or pilot incapacitations” associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
Southwest Airlines’ flight cancellations fueled partisan claims over the weekend that transportation workers were protesting COVID-19 vaccine requirements and causing the cancellations. But there’s no evidence that workers staged protests. The Federal Aviation Administration, the airline and labor unions have all cited other reasons.
While some specifics of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates haven’t been determined, misleading claims about who will be “exempt” have circulated online. Employees at the White House and in agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services are subject to Biden’s executive order requiring federal employees to be vaccinated.
Public health officials around the world have explained that erectile dysfunction is not a side effect of COVID-19 vaccines, but a viral tweet from rapper Nicki Minaj has spread the unfounded claim that it is. There is no evidence to support that claim.
Afghanistan has implemented a COVID-19 vaccination program and, although administration of vaccines has slowed due to internal armed conflicts, the program is still underway. But some prominent conservative purveyors of misinformation in the U.S. have made false claims about vaccination efforts and the impact of the pandemic in Afghanistan.