FactCheck.org’s SciCheck feature focuses exclusively on false and misleading scientific claims that are made by partisans to influence public policy. It was launched in January 2015 with a grant from the Stanton Foundation. The foundation was founded by the late Frank Stanton, president of CBS for 25 years, from 1946 to 1971.
An Instagram post falsely claims that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting all pneumonia and influenza deaths as caused by COVID-19. That’s wrong and is based on a misreading of one type of monitoring the agency conducts.
A primer on the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive authorization and approval in the U.S.
Q: Did a recent study in Denmark show that face masks are useless for COVID-19?
A: No. The study found that face masks did not have a large protective effect for wearers — not that masks provide no protection at all or don’t offer benefits to others.
In a tweet, Sen. Rand Paul misleadingly suggested that immunity from “[n]aturally acquired” COVID-19 was better than that from a vaccine. But it’s not known how immunity from the two sources compares — and the entire point of a vaccine is to offer immunity without the risk of getting sick.
In a series of tweets, President Donald Trump claimed — without evidence — that the pharma company Pfizer and his own FDA purposely held off on releasing positive interim results about a COVID-19 vaccine candidate until after the election.
President Trump has made the misleading boast that the U.S. is in “great shape” because 97% of emergency room visits were for something other than COVID-19. Trump could have boasted of similar percentages — 93% to 96% — during the worst periods of the pandemic.
President Trump said that once he came down with COVID-19, people for partisan reasons shifted from saying immunity was lifelong to saying it lasted only a few months. Experts haven’t changed their estimates.
At campaign rallies and in tweets, President Trump falsely said the World Health Organization changed its position and “admitted that Donald Trump was right” about lockdowns. But the agency has said no such thing.
Coronavirus task force member Dr. Scott Atlas and Sen. Rand Paul have misleadingly suggested that much of the U.S. population has immunity to the coronavirus due to previous exposure to similar viruses. But scientists say any possible protection is theoretical.
Calling investigational COVID-19 antibody drugs “cures” in a video posted to Twitter, President Donald Trump incorrectly said the therapies had been authorized and that “hundreds of thousands of doses” were nearly ready.