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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,673 published reviews in this topic

dpaHealth & medicine

Un graphique montre beaucoup plus de cas positifs de Covid-19 en Israël que dans les Territoires palestiniens. Conclusion : « On voit le problème entre un pays vacciné et un qui ne l'est pas. »

Publisher’s rating: Le message est trompeur, l’utilisateur de Facebook mélangeant les pommes et les poires. Il fait entre autres abstraction d’une donnée fondamentale : les tests de dépistage du Covid-19 sont beaucoup plus nombreux en Israël que dans les Territoires palestiniens.

The post compared confirmed Covid-19 cases in Israel and the Palestinian Territories between 20 May and 10 August 2021. It showed more cases in Israel and used that difference to argue that the situation demonstrated a problem between a vaccinated country and one that was not. The review notes that the comparison also involved populations of different sizes: about 8.7 million people in Israel and 5.3 million in the Palestinian Territories, comprising the West Bank and Gaza.

dpaHealth & medicine

Reden voor openen vaccinatiecentrum voor jongeren is één gemelde besmetting.

Publisher’s rating: Het bericht is deels fout. CommonSenseTV lijkt hier Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland door elkaar te halen. Laatstgenoemde is in lockdown gegaan door één nieuwe coronabesmetting. Echter is in Australië en zeker in de deelstaat New South Wales, waar deze persconferentie plaatsvond, een behoorlijk stevige coronagolf gaande.

The claim concerned a video showing New South Wales health minister Bradley Hazzard discussing a temporary youth vaccination centre at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney. CommonSenseTV presented the centre as a response to a single infection. The review identifies the centre’s intended group as students aged 16 and older who lived or attended school in areas with high infection numbers, and says the centre was not opened because only one infection had been detected. The review distinguishes the Australian situation from New Zealand’s: New Zealand had entered a three-day lockdown after one new infection, while New South Wales was experiencing a substantial outbreak. It cites an ABC News report that recorded 633 new infections in New South Wales alone, and notes that a health official told ABC that teenagers were also being admitted to hospital. These details address why a one-infection explanation did not fit the setting of Hazzard’s announcement. The review also clarifies the video’s claims about access and attendance. Parents were not permitted inside with the eligible 16-and-over students, but the students were not being taken from school and vaccinated without consent: participation was voluntary, required online registration, and students arranged their own transport. Police and other officials were present, which Hazzard described as reassurance for parents.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Bei diesen Infektionskrankheiten greifen in Deutschland keinerlei Eindämmungsmaßnahmen.

Publisher’s rating: Für mehrere der genannten Krankheiten gibt es in Deutschland strikte Eindämmungsmaßnahmen, die teilweise auch eine Isolation der Erkrankten vorschreiben.

The claim concerned whether Germany had no containment measures for the infectious diseases named in a social-media graphic comparing them with COVID-19 rules. The review found that the claim was too broad: measures varied by disease, but several of the illnesses named were subject to reporting requirements, isolation, restrictions on entering communal settings, or other precautions. The article says that many of the diseases are notifiable and gives tuberculosis as an example for which people may have to isolate to prevent further spread. The review describes stricter responses for some other infections. People with Ebola must go to a special isolation unit, and people suspected of or infected with certain haemorrhagic fevers transmissible between people must also be isolated. For suspected meningococcal infection, it says communal facilities such as schools and kindergartens may not be attended; it also lists pertussis, rubella, scarlet fever, mumps and diphtheria among illnesses for which affected people may not attend such facilities. The review further notes that the measles protection law, in effect since 1 March 2020, requires proof of vaccination or prior illness for children entering school or kindergarten and people working there. The article also qualifies the comparison: it does not claim every disease has the same restrictions. It distinguishes infections that can spread through particular routes, such as HIV, from diseases it says do not spread directly from person to person, including dengue, Lyme disease and hantaviruses. For conjunctivitis, pneumococcal disease, influenza and glandular fever, it reports no special protective measures, while noting advice to keep distance from others. These distinctions contradict the blanket assertion that no containment measures existed.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaHealth & medicine

FACT CHECK: අගෝස්තු 18 උදෑසන කොවිඩ් ආසාදිත මංගල ජීවිතයට සමු දුන්නාද?

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim concerned former finance minister Mangala Samaraweera, who had contracted COVID-19: a Facebook post circulated on August 18, 2021, implying that he had died, including by offering condolences. Fact Crescendo says it checked the reports then circulating and found that no mainstream media outlet had reported his death; it also describes the social-media death report as false. The review’s conclusion is specifically about the situation by 4 p.m. on August 18, not a claim that he would never die.

dpaHealth & medicine

In Israël meer gevaccineerden ernstig ziek van COVID-19 dan ongevaccineerden.

Publisher’s rating: De grafiek geeft een vertekend beeld. In deze grafiek zijn de absolute aantallen te zien, maar van de Israëlische zestigplussers is zo’n 90% volledig gevaccineerd tegen het coronavirus. De cijfers per 100.000 inwoners laten juist zien dat een ongevaccineerde zestigplusser een veel hoger risico loopt ernstig ziek met COVID-19 in het ziekenhuis te belanden dan een gevaccineerde zestigplusser.

The claim is based on a graph of Israeli adults aged 60 and over hospitalized with severe COVID-19, broken down by vaccination status. The review says the graph circulated on Facebook was genuine and came from Israel’s government coronavirus dashboard. It showed more vaccinated people in absolute numbers, but that comparison leaves out how many people in each group were vaccinated. The review reports that more than 90% of this age group had received at least two vaccine doses, so the groups were very different in size. To compare risk, the review distinguishes the dashboard’s absolute counts from its figures per 100,000 people. It reports that on 16 August 2021, approximately 154 of every 100,000 unvaccinated people aged 60 and over were hospitalized, compared with about 48 per 100,000 partially vaccinated people and 19 per 100,000 people classified by Israel’s government as fully vaccinated. Thus, the higher vaccinated count in the graph did not mean that an individual vaccinated older person faced greater risk: the per-person figures showed a substantially higher rate among the unvaccinated. The review also qualifies what those rates establish. It says other factors affect the chance of severe illness, so the figures should not be treated as a complete estimate of an individual’s risk. Its central comparison, however, is between absolute counts and population-adjusted rates, and the latter reverses the impression created by the graph’s raw totals.

Vishvas NewsHealth & medicine

कोरोना से अब डरें नही, सिर्फ 30 सैकंड, 👆7 exercise...By CMHO Gwalior Dr Manish ji Sharma

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The viral post said that people could avoid coronavirus infection by doing seven exercises for 30 seconds, attributing the advice to Gwalior CMHO Dr. Manish Sharma. Vishvas News identified Sharma as the person in the video and reported that the video made the claim that doing the exercises would prevent infection. The review’s conclusion is that this prevention claim is false; it does not establish that the exercises themselves are harmful or assess their effects for other purposes. To check the claim, Vishvas News says it searched Google using related keywords, reviewed reporting about the video and examined a notice on the Madhya Pradesh Health Department website. The review describes that notice as stating that the claim that the exercises would prevent coronavirus was misleading and inconsistent with ICMR and state-government guidelines. It also reports that health officials had issued Sharma a notice over the video and that he confirmed receiving one. The review additionally sought comment from two specialists. Scientist Dr. Pritam Singh called the claim illogical, while chest and TB specialist Dr. SK Pathak said the practice had no connection to medical science. Taken together, the cited departmental notice and expert comments address the central promise of guaranteed protection: the review found no basis for saying these exercises would prevent infection.