Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here.
Daily Debunk
Claim: A study published in November 2020 analyzed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in 2019 blood bank donations and found that the novel coronavirus may have been present in the U.S. weeks earlier than scientists realized.
Verdict: Mostly True
Read the full story at: Snopes
Social Media Disinfo
Circulating on social media: Posts purporting to show a “virus removal card” that can prevent infection from Covid-19 when worn around the neck.
Verdict: Misleading
Read the full story at: Agence France-Presse
Factual Reads on Coronavirus
Despite promise, few in US adopting COVID-19 exposure apps
Fewer than half of U.S. states and territories — 18 in total — have made such technology widely available. And according to a data analysis by The Associated Press, the vast majority of Americans in such locations haven’t activated the tool.
— Associated Press, December 6
Federal hospital data system falters at tracking pandemic
A Science examination … found the HHS data for three important values in Wisconsin hospitals—beds filled, intensive care unit (ICU) beds filled, and in-patients with COVID-19—often diverge dramatically from those collected by the other federal source, from state-supplied data, and from the apparent reality on the ground.
— Science, December 4
