Claim In a video interview by Policy Exchange on the 5th November 2021 Bill Gates tells Jeremy Hunt that Covid vaccines are not very good at stopping transmission of the virus …
In a video interview by Policy Exchange on the 5th November 2021 Bill Gates tells Jeremy Hunt that Covid vaccines are not very good at stopping transmission of the virus and we need a new way of doing the vaccines.
Reuters Rating – False
Reuters say:
Missing context. Bill Gates’ words have been taken out of context. He did not say COVID-19 vaccines are not working very well
Reuters write that a snippet of an interview with Bill Gates has been taken out of context by social media users. But if one watches the whole interview the realisation dawns that the context is correct in this claim circulating the internet.
The whole interview can be found here and the pertinent question from Jeremy is archived below:
The context is clear in that the vaccines have failed to stop transmission and this was one of their key selling points, and therefore the justification for Vaccine passports and mandates is logically also flawed.
Since the introduction of the vaccines for Covid, transmission has been central to the call for mandates, for we are sold on the idea that if you are vaccinated then you can get a vaccine passport to travel and go out and you are not a danger to others and are not going to be spreading the virus to anyone who is vulnerable. We are also repeatedly told that the country faces lockdown if people do not get their latest round of Covid vaccinations, for if you are not vaccinated then you are dirty and unclean.
On 3rd February 2021 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had this to say about the Astrazeneca Vaccine:
“research also shows that the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine seems likely to reduce transmission to others.”
And of course we are told that the pandemic will come to an end if we are all vaccinated, as this presumably kills it off through failure to transmit between individuals. Here is Matt Hancock on the subject from 30th December 2020:
Sky News on 23rd November 2020 said the following on the topic of transmission:
“Up to now there has been this question of whether vaccines reduce disease or reduce infection rates, and this vaccine does seem to be stopping the virus spreading.”
The other aspect of the sales pitch has been if you do not get a vaccination then you will lose your career. This is not done out of concern for an individual’s health and in case they might die on the job. Rather it is about the unvaccinated spreading the disease to others (who are already vaccinated).
The UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said recently on the 9th November 2021:
“So whether it’s in our care homes or hospitals, or any other health or care setting. The first duty of everyone working in health and social care is to avoid preventable harm to the people that they care for. And not only that, they have a responsibility to do all they can to keep each other safe.”
“I have concluded that all those working in the NHS and social care will have to be vaccinated. We must avoid preventable harm and protect patients in the NHS, protect colleagues in the NHS, and of course protect the NHS itself.”
These words and actions only make sense if the vaccine prevents transmission, and thus the central claim above.
The final nail in Bill’s coffin is that his last words on the vaccine are :
“We need a new way of doing the vaccines”
Reuters then are guilty of misunderstanding what was said themselves and risk spreading misinformation to people on the internet. Their article was deceptive in telling people to think the way they themselves do, and to not look at the evidence on their own.
As a recent comparison from across the pond, Joe Biden on the 7th October 2021 said:
“At a health care facility you should have the certainty that the people providing that care are protected from Covid and cannot spread it to you”
Claim During the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on 11/11/21 Joe Biden was giving a speech and offered birthday wishes to Donald Lincoln – the father of the Secretary …
During the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on 11/11/21 Joe Biden was giving a speech and offered birthday wishes to Donald Lincoln – the father of the Secretary of state. As part of his wishes he gave an anecdote about Satchel Paige and referred to him as the great negro.
Snopes Rating – False
Snopes say:
While he did indeed utter the words “I’ve adopted the attitude of the great Negro,” and said them in that order, the context surrounding that sentence fragment does not support the claim or implication that Biden “called” or “referred to” Satchel Paige as “the great Negro.”
“Joe Biden Did Not Refer to Satchel Paige as Negro in Speech.” Mediaite, 11 Nov. 2021, https://www.mediaite.com/online/no-joe-biden-did-not-refer-to-satchel-paige-as-a-negro-during-veterans-day-speech/. Accessed 11 Nov. 2021.
Our Rating – True
Justification
Here is a link to the live recording of that speech at the time of the offending comments, and this is attached below also:
Joe clearly says the words reported and they are clearly about the Baseball player Satchel Paige.
Snopes say that the context is important and his words have been misinterpreted so let’s take a look at that. Theses words can be twisted around in terms of the context.
If Joe said instead “i’ve adpoted the attitude of the” :
great pitcher in the negro leagues
a great pitcher in the pros
a great pitcher in major league baseball after Jackie Robinson
All of these contextual switches still mean he is referring to Satchel Paige. To say otherwise is incorrect and Snopes are covering for him.
If Joe had offered an apology and corrected himself, like he often does, then something like the above could make sense, but he did not offer an apology for what he said and did not correct himself in front of the audience.
Snopes are interpreting the speech themselves in a manner that is incorrect and are telling you the reader, to do the same. This is deceptive and dishonest of Snopes.
What remains is trying to understand what Joe was on about with this anecdote. The best I can understand is that he’s saying to the birthday boy that he’s adopted an attitude that age doesn’t matter and says “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” Meaning that age doesn’t matter.
However in this anecdote the ability to throw a ball does matter, and in Joe’s speech the ability to say what you mean is central to this issue, and to his ongoing Presidency. How can one trust the word of someone who doesn’t say what they mean?
Claim On the 14th May 2021 Tony Fauci was questioned by senator Richard Burr as to how many people in his institute NIAID had taken a Covid vaccine. He said that …
On the 14th May 2021 Tony Fauci was questioned by senator Richard Burr as to how many people in his institute NIAID had taken a Covid vaccine. He said that about half of them had.
In a video of the meeting doctor Fauci said the following:
I’m not 100 percent sure, Senator, but I think it’s probably a little bit more than half, probably around 60 percent.
60% is clearly not half, and 60% is also not a little more than half, so what is he saying and how has it been interpreted.
Doctor Fauci is selling the figures here to the senator and wants him to believe that the majority of staff in the NIAID are compliant, but he doesn’t say why the other staff have not taken the vaccine.
It is wrong of the media to claim that the staff have refused the vaccine as we do not know their circumstances, maybe they have health conditions that make taking the vaccine dangerous, or maybe they are too young/old. But they are running off of his perceived untrustworthy nature.
When doctor Fauci says “a little more than half” one could assume 51% or 52%, but 60% is a leap over and above the value of half, and is better presented as three fifths. If his statement was honest he should have started at 60%, so it appears that he’s upselling the figure and making it higher than it actually is, and this brings into question the first statement’s truth.
Did a little more than half of the staff at the NIAID take a Covid Vaccine? We will not know from this testimony, and the senator should have asked for clarification as the figure given was suspect. It is possible that less than half took a vaccine, as salesmen tend to overestimate and doctor Fauci covers himself by stating “I’m not 100 percent sure”. However for the media to turn this testimony into half of the staff refuse the vaccine is clearly wrong.
Claim The COVID-19 pandemic was planned by the Rockefeller Foundation in “Operation Lockstep.” Snopes Rating – False Full Fact Rating – None Fact Check .org – None Our Rating – True …
This one is impressively misleading on the part of “fact checkers”. Starting from the opening line from snopes
Diabolical plans for world domination aren’t normally posted as readily available PDFs.
It is well known psychology that bad things can be hidden in plain sight. The followers of an organisation need to be told what will happen ahead of time as they are “followers” and cannot be expected to think for themselves. Most organisations plan well in advance of anything becoming public, let alone anything been widely known. For example the Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird was developed in the 1960’s and spotted by the public for years before it was publicly announced as real, people thought it was a UFO. Also their appears to be a metaphysical law of the universe that wicked plans must be published ahead of any action taken by wicked people, so as to give some warning to the public and absolve the wicked, and this also lessens the blow to the public when the event occurs as conspiracy theory becoming reality is less frightening. This is also like common law, where if you are told something is going to happen and you accept that without resistance, then the party acting is not liable for any damages.
In July 2020, several social media users started posting about “Operation Lockstep,” a document allegedly released by The Rockefeller Foundation that showed how global elites had planned to manufacture the COVID-19 pandemic for the last 10 years in order to implement a police state:
Snopes correctly classify the time period and the nature of the posts, but misattribute the information and claim to some low quality jpg as the source document. I have never seen this picture circulated before the snopes fact check article:
In 2010, the Rockefeller Foundation funded a scenario-planning exercise that envisioned how hypothetical future events could impact the development of technology. This document, however, does not provide any sort of “operation manual” for how to manufacture a global pandemic
This document gives a hypothetical look at future events in order to envision possible problems that might arise. While this document does explore how the global population could react during a pandemic, it is in no way an “operation manual” for how to manufacture a virus in order to implement a police state.
Let’s break these quotes down; snopes say that this is a “planning exercise” despite opening the article dismissing the allegation that the document “showed how global elites had planned to manufacture the COVID-19 pandemic”. They also say that it “is in no way an “operation manual””
Well, let’s look at what the document actually predicts will happen, and how things played out in the world from early 2020 onwards:
The document’s pandemic scenario is called “Lock Step”. A “scenario” is defined by Cambridge University Dictionary as:
a description of possible actions or events in the future
Well this does indeed describe the event that we have all lived through, and this term “lock step” has been used by world leaders during the last year over and over again in relation to the pandemic. Two such examples follow in this video:
Moving on in the document:
this new influenza strain—originating from wild geese—was extremely virulent and deadly
snopes snidely points out that the document does not predict the origin animal correctly, and that the virus is not a corona strain in the document, but instead influenza. However these are trifling details in the scheme of things and somewhat of a distraction from the main points. Nextrain.org have the origin animal as a Pangolin lineage anyway, so who knows!
The pandemic also had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.
Now the meat of the plan, and clearly we know these things happened to us in 2020, matching the plan in the Lock Step scenario:
The United States’s initial policy of “strongly discouraging” citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but across borders. However, a few countries did fare better—China in particular. The Chinese government’s quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter postpandemic recovery
During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets.
This is all so familiar to us, that I barely even need to find evidence, but for the record:
Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems—from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty—leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power
Citizens willingly gave up some of their sovereignty—and their privacy—to more paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and stability.
Citizens were more tolerant, and even eager, for top-down direction and oversight, and national leaders had more latitude to impose order in the ways they saw fit. In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example
While the above have already happened, at the time of writing the remainder of the lock step commentary is in the future for us. We will see in time whether these “predictions” come true as well
But more authoritarian leadership worked less well—and in some cases tragically—in countries run by irresponsible elites who used their increased power to pursue their own interests at the expense of their citizens
Scientists and innovators were often told by governments what research lines to pursue
By 2025, people seemed to be growing weary of so much top-down control and letting leaders and authorities make choices for them. Wherever national interests clashed with individual interests, there was conflict. Sporadic pushback became increasingly organized and coordinated, as disaffected youth and people who had seen their status and opportunities slip away—largely in developing countries—incited civil unrest.
In 2026, protestors in Nigeria brought down the government, fed up with the entrenched cronyism and corruption. Even those who liked the greater stability and predictability of this world began to grow uncomfortable and constrained by so many tight rules and by the strictness of national boundaries. The feeling lingered that sooner or later, something would inevitably upset the neat order that the world’s governments had worked so hard to establish.
Scanners using advanced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology become the norm at airports and other public areas to detect abnormal behavior that may indicate “antisocial intent.”
New diagnostics are developed to detect communicable diseases. The application of health screening also changes; screening becomes a prerequisite for release from a hospital or prison, successfully slowing the spread of many diseases.
Tele-presence technologies respond to the demand for less expensive, lower bandwidth, sophisticated communications systems for populations whose travel is restricted.
It’s hard not to look at our own expereince of 2020 and to see how the the lock step scenario has played out word for word in reality, with the majority of the countries copying each other in their response like it had been a scripted event. Just take a look at this compilation video to show how every country is in lock step with each other over the testing and vaccination of people. It makes you think about how propaganda works when people don’t look outside of their own country and in this day and age ignorance is really a choice one makes:
The source video appears to have been removed, but here is local copy.
Claim In late 2020 and early 2021 people started saying that the Covid-19 vaccines skipped standard animal trials before they were tested on humans. Snopes Rating – No Rating APNews – …
There is a known and expected process for the development of a new vaccine to follow, and this includes animal testing before it is given to humans. The University Of Oxford details these steps as follows:
Reviewing what has been done before.
Theoretical development or innovation: coming up with a new idea, or a variation on an existing idea.
Laboratory testing and development. This involves ‘in vitro’ testing using individual cells and ‘in vivo’ testing, often using mice. The vaccine has to pass rigorous safety tests at this stage, and demonstrate that it works in animals.
Phase I study – an initial trial involving a small group of adult participants (up to 100 people). This is carried out to make sure that the vaccine does not have major safety concerns in humans, and also to work out the most effective dose.
Phase II study – a trial in a larger group of participants (several hundred people). Phase II trials check that the vaccine works consistently, and look at whether it generates an immune response. Researchers also start looking for potential side effects.
Phase III study – a trial in a much larger group of people (usually several thousand). Phase III trials gather statistically significant data on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy (how well it works). This means looking at whether the vaccine generates a level of immunity that would prevent disease, and provides evidence that the vaccine can actually reduce the number of cases. It also gives a better chance of identifying rarer side effects not seen in the phase II study.
Licensing – expert review of all trial data by the UK government (through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – MHRA) At this stage the regulators check that the trials show that the product meets the necessary efficacy and safety levels. They also make sure that, for most people, the product’s advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
Phase IV studies – post-marketing surveillance to monitor the effects of the vaccine after it has been used in the population. These may be requested by a regulatory body, or carried out by the pharmaceutical industry.
Two of the three main vaccines developed for Covid-19 did skip the Laboratory testing phase and instead went straight to Phase 1. This was the Pfizer Biontech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. They chose to instead run the animal trials in parallel with their Phase 1 human trial, thus removing the rigorous animal testing safeguard.
The other vaccine developer did not skip this phase, this was AstraZeneca.
To date none of the vaccines have been licensed or approved and instead have an emergency use status from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as national governments.
Claim On 08/03/2020 as recorded by 60 minutes TV show Doctor Anthony Fauci – The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that masks would not stop …
On 08/03/2020 as recorded by 60 minutes TV show Doctor Anthony Fauci – The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that masks would not stop the spread of coronavirus.
Snopes Rating – No Rating
Full Fact – NoRating
Fact Check – Outdated
Lead Stories Rating – Partly False
Our Rating – True
Justification
For some reason Lead Stories and Factcheck.org have focused on the age of the comments and the change in advice following the statement. This is used by facebook to report the statements as “old guidance”
The simple fact is that Dr. Fauci stated to the nation as an expert that he did not believe that facemasks would help protect people from the spread of Covid-19 with the following statement:
There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.
This is a professional view of an expert that cannot be revoked with the passage of time, so the fact check is incorrect in asserting that his view from many years of scientific investigation can be somehow be changed in a month.
As it happens the evidence of the spread of Covid-19 since show that Dr. Fauci was correct, because masks have been introduced in many countries to no avail, and the spread has exponentially grown even with this mitigation in place.
The idea that an expert opinion is so fluid that it is not worth considering is not what the fact checkers want to present here, rather it is the idea that you do as you are told and you are to forget what the advice was a month ago. This is political agenda not a scientific one as all can plainly see.
Evidence
The transcript of the important part of the interview is as follows:
Fauci: Right now in the United States people should not be walking around with masks.
LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
Fauci: Right now, people should not be worried. There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.
LaPook: And can you get some schmutz sort of staying inside there?
Fauci: Of course, but when you think mask you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it if you want to do it that’s fine.
Claim On 11/09/2020 The CDC published a report on Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19. In this report the CDC showed evidence that wearing masks was not effective at …
On 11/09/2020 The CDC published a report on Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19. In this report the CDC showed evidence that wearing masks was not effective at stopping the virus in three quarters of those patients tested for Coronavirus.
This statement was echoed by President Trump on 15th October 2020.
Snopes Rating – Mostly False
Full Fact Rating – None
Fact Check .org – None
Our Rating – True
Justification
Snopes ruling was as follows:
Nearly three-quarters of people interviewed in a non-peer-reviewed study conducted by the CDC said that they had worn a mask or cloth face covering while in public in the weeks leading up to their COVID-19 diagnosis. The report concluded that although people were wearing masks, that does not mean they were wearing them properly, and that “masks cannot be effectively worn while eating and drinking, whereas shopping and numerous other indoor activities do not preclude mask use.”
However, the findings do not suggest that masks and face coverings are ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Rather, the report argued that although people said that they had worn a mask, that does not necessarily mean they wore it properly. And even if they wore their mask appropriately and followed recommendations, such measures may be insufficient in certain settings.
The data from the CDC clearly shows the wearing a mask alone is not effective at preventing the spread of Covid-19. This is a fact and it cannot be talked away as Snopes tries to by introducing Social distancing as an obfuscation.
The data in the report clearly shows that 70.6 % of case patients and 74.2% of control participants contracted Coronavirus while always wearing a mask.
Any discussion around this is not science and is introducing politics into the report which does not exist. Suggesting that people did not wear their masks “properly” is demeaning and pernicious and shows that fact checkers are not checking facts, rather selling a narrative.
Claim On 29/09/2020 at the 1st presidential debate in Cleveland, Joe Biden wore a wire that was enabling him to be told what to say by off stage advisors. Snopes Rating …
There was a low quality video doing the rounds showing a line appearing above Joe Biden’s shirt and below his jacket when it was moved. This was suggested to be that of an electronic wire, which was connected to some device hidden under his jacket.
However when the higher quality video of the same moment is seen it is clear that this “wire” line is nothing more than a crease in his shirt.
Claim On 07/03/2016 in Abu Dhabi Joe Biden gave a speech to members of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, during the speech he referred to the troops as “Stupid Bastards” Snopes …
On 07/03/2016 in Abu Dhabi Joe Biden gave a speech to members of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, during the speech he referred to the troops as “Stupid Bastards”
Snopes Rating – Mostly False
Our Rating – True
Justification
There is video evidence from multiple sources and angles showing that Joe calls the troops, quote:
Stupid Bastards
Joking or otherwise, it was inappropriate for a Vice President to use this term in a speech as a member of the Government. It is demining to all levels of rank in the US Air Force.
Claim On 28th September 2020 the mayor of London Sadiq Khan faked getting a flu vaccination. Snopes Rating – None Full Fact Rating – None Our Rating – Partially true Justification …
On 28th September 2020 the mayor of London Sadiq Khan faked getting a flu vaccination.
Snopes Rating – None
Full Fact Rating – None
Our Rating – Partially true
Justification
Sadiq Khan tweeted the following along with a photo
We are heading into flu season.
If you or someone you know is entitled to receive a flu jab, remember you can get one for free at your local high street pharmacy or GP surgery.
Booking one is easy. Just visit http://londonflu.co.uk
In the image it can clearly seen that this is a photo opportunity and not a real vaccination being given.
A close up of the original image shows that the needle has it’s cap on it and thus could not be used to give an injection into his arm as is suggested by the tweet. Also it appears that despite his shirt being rolled back it is covering the intended site of the injection.
This is not the first time a politician has posed for a photo of a vaccination being given, there are other examples of this happening from around the world.
The premier of Queensland, Australia, Annastacia Palaszczuk was filmed in a second mock vaccination shot for the press as they missed the first:
The Ontario Minister of Health, Christine Elliott may also have staged a vaccination injection for the press.
It is unlikely that Sadiq Khan is a genuinely faking his vaccination because he is afraid to take one, giving the mayor two vaccination shots could be dangerous to his health so it is also likely that a press piece would not actually give him a second injection, and instead use a dummy needle for the sake of appearances. However this exercise is misleading to the general public, and should not be done to avoid such speculation of what is obviously posed.
Evidence
Twitter:
We are heading into flu season.
If you or someone you know is entitled to receive a flu jab, remember you can get one for free at your local high street pharmacy or GP surgery.
