The Biden administration hasn’t introduced COVID-19 travel restrictions on Americans going to Mexico since the delta variant became dominant in the U.S., and it is enforcing immigration laws at the border. But a meme falsely claiming the opposite is circulating online.
An epidemiologist recommended that people get the COVID-19 vaccine because some evidence suggests an unvaccinated person who gets the delta variant is “twice as likely to require hospital treatment” than someone infected with the alpha variant. But a Facebook video twists that advice to claim that he said vaccinated people would be twice as likely to be hospitalized.
A satire site a month ago published a joke about the Biden administration creating “quarantine camps” for the unvaccinated. Now that fabricated story is circulating online, presented as if it’s real.
Cases of COVID-19 are increasing in Texas, but it doesn’t have the “highest COVID positivity rate and case count in the nation” — contrary to what Democrat Julián Castro recently tweeted.
Livestock and poultry are not being vaccinated against COVID-19. But a meme is spreading the falsehood that those who eat meat from vaccinated animals will get “VAXXED” by consuming the meat. That simply isn’t possible, according to immunologists.
The delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 spreads more quickly than the original virus and has been classified as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization. It is now the dominant variant in the U.S. But a meme has been circulating on Facebook falsely claiming the delta variant is “fake news.”
On Twitter, the House Republican Conference posted an image of rising homicide rates in seven cities with this bit of misleading commentary: “Welcome to President Biden’s America.”
A list of the ingredients used in COVID-19 vaccines is publicly available, and the ingredients don’t include microchips. Yet claims advancing conspiracy theories that they do continue to flourish. A recent video purports to show a microchip reader for pets detecting a chip in a vaccinated person’s arm — but the original video was created as a joke.
Democrats say their bill, H.R. 1, the For the People Act, would expand voter access in federal elections. But a Facebook post falsely claims the legislation would prevent the removal of dead people from voter rolls. The bill doesn’t say that, and existing federal legislation requires states to remove names of the deceased from voting lists.
In the days leading up to the Senate vote on the House-passed elections bill, Republicans offered several misleading talking points about the Democratic bill, and made other statements that required more context.