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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.

13,674 published reviews in this topic

ComprovaHealth & medicine

52 cidades com zero casos de covid graças ao tratamento precoce

Publisher’s rating: FALSO: É falso que municípios tenham zerado o número de mortes por covid-19 ao adotarem protocolos de tratamento com hidroxicloroquina e ivermectina. Os números epidemiológicos das cidades listadas desmentem o boato. Além disso, as substâncias não têm eficácia comprovada como tratamento da covid-19 e a conexão com a queda no números de casos é insustentável.

dpaHealth & medicine

NOS gebruikt jaren oude foto om de huidige COVID-situatie in Brazilië af te beelden.

Publisher’s rating: Het bericht klopt niet. De foto is op 26 maart 2021 voor het eerst gepubliceerd door het Franse persbureau AFP. Er zijn geen oudere versies van de foto te vinden. Ook de claim dat in Brazilië alles "open en normaal" is, klopt niet. Welke mensen de berichtgeving over Brazilië tegenspreken, is niet duidelijk. Wel weten we uit officiële bronnen en Brazilië-correspondenten dat de foto in lijn is met de huidige COVID-situatie in het land.

dpaHealth & medicine

Un graphique montre que l'épidémie est fini, et le risque de s'infecter dehors et nul.

Publisher’s rating: Ni l’épidémie, ni la pandémie du covid-19 ne sont terminées. Le graphique a été mis à jour le 27 janvier et ne prend pas en compte les chiffres croissants postérieurs à cette date. Quant au risque de contamination, il est certes beaucoup moins élevé à l'extérieur que dans des espaces clos, mais toujours existant.

The post used a graph published by Geneva University Hospitals to argue that COVID-19 was over, and urged people to stop wearing masks outdoors on the ground that infection risk there was zero. The review examined what the graph covered and compared its endpoint with later Swiss case figures; it also cited an epidemiologist’s explanation of what the graph could establish. The graph tracked cases in six Swiss cantons and two neighboring French departments, rather than all of Switzerland, and its recorded data ended on January 28, 2021. Silvia Stringhini, head of the hospitals’ population epidemiology unit, said the graph did not show that the epidemic in Switzerland had ended. The review reports that Swiss case counts continued to fluctuate after the graph’s cutoff: the federal public health office recorded 1,780 infections nationwide on January 28, while in mid-April its daily estimates ranged from 970 to 2,800. Those later figures directly contradict treating the graph’s January endpoint as proof that transmission had ceased. The review also distinguishes lower outdoor risk from no outdoor risk. Stringhini said infection risk could be up to 20 times higher indoors, but that outdoor transmission was not impossible; the circumstances and duration of an encounter mattered. The review therefore supports a more qualified conclusion than the post’s absolute claim: outdoor transmission was less likely than indoors, but the evidence cited did not make the risk zero.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Image showing patients lying on the floor with bare minimum medical facilities in Pakistan

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim attributes an image of patients receiving care in makeshift conditions to Pakistan. The original review says the image instead shows patients in villages near the Maharashtra–Gujarat border in India, being treated under tents with minimal medical facilities. It reports that the patients had typhoid, while hospitals were filled with COVID-19 patients. The image was therefore presented with the wrong country and a misleading account of the patients’ illness. The review describes how it traced the image: a reverse-image search led to a Marathi regional news video on YouTube dated 20 April 2021, whose visuals were similar to those in the circulated image. According to the review’s account of that video, the scenes were from villages on the Maharashtra side of the state border and showed typhoid patients, not COVID-19 patients. The review says it then found Hindi and Gujarati regional news reports that showed images similar to, or the same as, the circulated image and likewise identified the patients as typhoid cases near the border. It concludes that the image was from India, not Pakistan. It also notes a qualification: the villages were described as being near the state border, and the image was also circulated with a claim that it showed Gujarat, although the patients were said to be from villages mostly on the Maharashtra side.

APA - Austrian Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

Mehr als 50 Prozent der Covid-19-Intensivbetten sind mit Migranten belegt. Sie werden im nationalen Impfplan bevorzugt.

Publisher’s rating: 11,7 Prozent der Menschen, die bis Ende Februar 2021 wegen Corona intensivpflichtig wurden, hatten nicht die österreichische Staatsbürgerschaft. Eine geografische Auswertung wird aufgrund von hohen Schwankungsbreiten nicht durchgeführt. Prinzipiell sind Migranten stärker von Covid-19 betroffen. Das liegt unter anderem an beengten Wohnverhältnissen und Sprachbarrieren. Im aktuellen Impfplan werden sie nicht bevorzugt.

dpaHealth & medicine

Des déclarations de Jacques Attali, sur l'euthanasie et la pandémie.

Publisher’s rating: La citation est fabriquée de toute pièce. Elle est formée en partie d’extraits disparates d’un recueil d’entretiens, publié en 1981, en partie de mensonges, confirme Jacques Attali, interrogé par la dpa. Il dénonce certains propos « totalement inventés ».

The post circulated in Luxembourg and Belgium attributes a long passage to Jacques Attali and presents it as a 1981 prediction connected to Covid-19. The quoted passage claims that society would reduce its population through euthanasia and suggests provoking a pandemic, then says that people deemed “idiots” would go to slaughter voluntarily. The investigation distinguishes the passage’s references to two different books rather than treating the viral text as a single authentic quotation. [S1: “Des utilisateurs de Facebook publient, au Luxembourg et en Belgique, une longue citation qu’ils attribuent à l’intellectuel français Jacques Attali. Elle daterait de 1981.”; “L’utilisateur belge insiste sur la phrase suivante, en établissant un lien avec le Covid-19 : « La sélection des idiots se fera ainsi toute seule : ils iront d'eux-mêmes à l'abattoir. »”] For the euthanasia material, the article identifies “L'avenir de la vie,” a 1981 collection of interviews with Attali by Michel Salomon, as the alleged source, but says the viral text does not appear there in its entirety. It reports that some excerpts about euthanasia had been taken from the interviews and reproduced separately in 2012 by a French pro-life association. For the pandemic-related material, the article says Attali identified the “Dictionnaire du XXIe siècle” (1999) as the source from which the viral text drew, out of context; it quotes his denial that the defamatory passage was in that book. [S1: “La citation serait tirée, dans son intégralité, de « L'avenir de la vie », un recueil d’entretiens que Jacques Attali a accordés au médecin et écrivain français Michel Salomon (éditions Seghers, 1981).”; “Le 3 novembre 2020, le service de vérification des faits de la dpa avait déjà dénoncé l’exploitation abusive ce certains extraits, disparates, des entretiens que Jacques Attali a accordés à Michel Salomon, sur l’euthanasie. Ils ont été reproduits en 2012 par l’association pro-vie française « Laissez-les vivre SOS futures mères ».”; “Le 14 avril 2021, Jacques Attali avait lui-même certifié à la dpa que les extraits de la citation relatifs à la pandémie s'inspiraient, hors-contexte, d’un autre ouvrage: le « Dictionnaire du XXIe siècle » (éditions Fayard, 1999).”] The article provides passages from both books to show the distinction: the 1999 dictionary excerpt discusses possible epidemics, including H5N1 and measles, and unequal access to treatment, but does not contain the viral passage’s claims about deliberately causing a pandemic as a population-selection method. On the evidence presented, the viral text combines disparate material with invented statements; it should not be treated as an authentic quotation from either book. [S1: “On lit, en intégralité, dans le chapitre de l’ouvrage de 1999 consacré à « l’épidémie »:”; “Conformément à la loi du marché, on préférera soigner des riches atteints d’une maladie plutôt que de vacciner des pauvres avant qu’ils n’en soient atteints. Des hécatombes sont donc à prévoir dans le Sud.”]

dpaHealth & medicine

Zelfs kraanwater is positief voor corona.

Publisher’s rating: De test is niet op de correcte manier gedaan, waardoor de uitslag ook niet betrouwbaar is. Deze facebookpost is daarom onjuist. De gebruikte test is uitsluitend ontwikkeld voor het testen van neusswabs en is niet gemaakt voor het testen van water of ander voedsel of drinkbare vloeistoffen.