Author: Laz

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 – False

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9792931264

Full Fact – No Rating

Fact Check – True

Q&A on Coronavirus Vaccines

Our Rating – Partially True

Justification

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.

https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/vaccine-development

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.

Evidence

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-vaccine-trial-no-animal-testing.html

https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-update-vaccine-skips-important-animal-testing-phase-straight-human-trials-2941208

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 the spread of coronavirus.

Snopes Rating – No Rating

Full Fact – No Rating

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.

The interview video in full:

The important part of the interview for download:

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 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.

Evidence

The CDC Report online:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm

A PDF copy attached:

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

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.

Booking one is easy. Just visit https://t.co/1tKDvcOzi0 pic.twitter.com/eR1tkfIvcB

— Mayor of London (gov.uk/coronavirus) (@MayorofLondon) September 28, 2020

Here is an image of new disposable hypodermic needles showing the safety caps:

Claim

On 21st September 2020 Sir Patrick Vallance said that UK would see 50,000 cases a day by mid-October unless action is taken.

Snopes Rating – None

Full Fact Rating – Partial

https://fullfact.org/health/vallance-growth-rates/

Our Rating – False

Justification

All of the main stream media used Patrick Vallance’s statement incorrectly:

BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-54235708

ITV:

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-09-21/coronavirus-restrictions-what-are-the-new-covid-19-measures-for-pubs

Metro:

Scientists warn of ‘50,000 cases a day’ if infections keep rising

MSN:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/sir-patrick-vallance-uk-could-see-50000-cases-a-day-by-mid-october-unless-action-is-taken/vi-BB19g9Ig

Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/uk-could-have-50000-covid-cases-a-day-by-mid-october-says-chief-medical-officer-chris-whitty

Patrick Vallance prefaced all of his comments as speculation that was not a prediction or prophecy, despite it being reported as such.

He said in his statement

At the moment we think that the epidemic is doubling roughly every 7 days. It could be a little bit longer, maybe a little bit shorter, but let’s say roughly every seven days.

If, and that’s quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows doubling every seven days then what you see of course, let’s say there were 5000 today, it would be 10000 next week, 20000 the week after, 40000 the week after.

And you can see that by mid October, if that continued, you would end up with something like 50000 cases in the middle of October per day.

He then suffixes his statement by stating:

This is not a prediction

Evidence

The link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji2CGVehQNU

His statement is embedded below:

It remains unknown as to why he thought the words of this statement should be spoken, and why it was a good idea to broadcast easily misconstrued information.

Claim

Indian scientists at the following institute and university wrote a paper on the Novel Coronavirus:

• Kusuma School of biological sciences, Indian institute of technology, New Delhi-110016, India
• Acharya Narendra Dev College, University of Delhi, New Delhi-110019, India

They were identified as the following people:

• Prashant Pradhan
• Ashutosh Kumar Pandey
• Akhilesh Mishra
• Parul Gupta
• Praveen Kumar Tripathi
• Manoj Balakrishnan Menon
• James Gomes
• Perumal Vivekanandan
• Bishwajit Kundu

The paper was called “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag” and can be found here on a bioRxiv server:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full

They used the following tools to come to a conclusion:

• NCBI viral genome database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)
• GISAID (Elbe & Buckland-Merrett, 2017)[https://www.gisaid.org/]
• MUSCLE software (Edgar, 2004)
• MEGAX software (Kumar et al., 2018)
• Multalin software (Corpet, 1988)
• BLASTp and BLASTn
• WISS-MODEL online server (Biasini et al., 2014)
• PyMol (DeLano, 2002)

Their conclusion was that the Novel Coronavirus SARS-COV-2 (2019-nCov) had inserts in it mapped to short segments of amino acids in the HIV-1 virus.

Snopes Rating – False

The Origins and Scientific Failings of the COVID-19 ‘Bioweapon’ Conspiracy Theory

Our Rating – True

Justification

The methodology for the experiment was sound and the despite this being a pre-print of a scientific paper that had not yet been peer reviewed, the only review comments made that caused the paper to be withdrawn were about the language used in the discussion, and there being similarities between HIV-1 inserts and other organisms inserts.

There was no criticism of the method, the collection of the test data or the tools used, and their computer aided results obtained .

Instead the following critisism was made in: “https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/03/retraction-faulty-coronavirus-paper-good-moment-for-science/”

The use of the word “uncanny” in the title, together with “unlikely to be fortuitous”

The author’s methods seemed rushed, and the findings were at most a coincidence

Neither of these reasons by an unknown reviewer are addressing the data or the findings. They simply chastise the authors for some non-scientific terms being used.

Further criticism was made by Arinjay Banerjee in:

No, “HIV insertions” were not identified in the 2019 coronavirus, contrary to claims based on questionable bioinformatics study

The critique in this piece is that the HIV protiens identified were common to other viruses and thus could not be conclusively shown to be HIV.

indeed it has high identity to the HIV gp120/gag. However, the authors chose to align only this small region and not do a basic check on whether there were other sequences which were also homologous (showing high degree of similarity/identity). As it turned out, the region is also homologous to many unrelated sequences. As such, the conclusions drawn from the data are no longer valid

However HIV had not been ruled out either by this thought process, so the comments were a distraction rather than a real objection.

So we have some vague hand wavy excuses for why the paper was invalid. The following things by virtue of not being part of the review are thus considered to be correct and true:

• The correct virus sequences were obtained and were correctly processed
• The correct tools were used to process the sequences to arrive at a computer assisted conclusion
• The tools were used correctly producing output that is consistent with reviewing scientists expectations
• The virus has unnatural inserts that a bat coronavirus wouldn’t normally have
• The amino acid inserts do resemble those found in HIV-1

Evidence

The paper is archived here for reference: