Jack Goodman and Flora Carmichael
Reality Check.
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Image captionPassive anti-vaccine protests have caught the attention of freedom-loving people who oppose vaccination.
Opposition to the UK lockdown has led to street protests and social media campaigns.
Many of the complaints filed were fueled by false and misleading claims.
We examined the seven most commonly used examples.
Article: Here we are a year later – the world has survived 99.97%.
Verdict: These and similar generally accepted figures are incorrect.
This difference may seem insignificant, but it means that about 70 in 10,000 people are likely to die, not three in 10,000.
The mortality rate is significantly higher in the elderly and high-risk groups.
And many people of all ages are experiencing serious long-term effects from the virus.
Copyright of media images
Article: Suicides during incarceration increased by 200%
The house arrest and economic impact of the pandemic has undoubtedly affected people’s mental health.
But the 200% increase in suicides during the pandemic is false.
Article: Every winter, hundreds of people die from respiratory diseases… why are we locked up?
Verdict: Influenza, a serious respiratory virus, can be deadly, but vaccines and treatments are available. Vaccines against Covid-19 have only recently become available, and it is only now that more effective treatments are available.
The long-term effects of Covid can also be much more serious for many people, and they are more contagious than the flu.
Covid is also deadly, says Professor Andrew Pekosch, head of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Covid-19 has a higher rate of serious morbidity and mortality than influenza in all age groups, possibly with the exception of children under 12 years of age.
Image captionTweets like this highly selective data quote for flu and Covid, and the question of whether to block.
Article: Covid 19 mortality was incorrectly overestimated
Verdict: To date, more than 125,000 deaths due to Covid have been reported in the UK.
There are different ways of recording these deaths, but there is general agreement on the scale of the crisis.
According to the ONS, around 90 per cent of deaths where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate were due to the virus being the main cause attributed to the doctor.
The total number of SNOs is broadly in line with the Public Health England average, which takes into account all people who died within 28 days of a positive test, and the number of excess deaths, which is measured by the five-year average.
According to the three national statistical offices in the United Kingdom, almost all of these cases are attributed to the coronavirus.
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ImagesBars and restaurants remained open in Sweden at the start of the pandemic.
Article: The non-stop fare in Sweden performed better than in the UK.
Verdict: Sweden has a lower Covid mortality rate than the UK, but it is significantly lower than that of its neighbours, all of which have tighter exit restrictions.
Many who oppose Covid’s restrictions point to the example of Sweden, a country that did not institute a blockade in the first days of the pandemic and instead advised people to back off.
However, Sweden is a very different country to the UK and has characteristics that may have helped it during the pandemic.
The population density is lower and most people live alone. The capital Stockholm is also a smaller international transit center than London.
Compared to other Nordic countries with a similar demographic profile, Sweden fared much worse, with significantly more deaths than in neighbouring countries, all of which suffered from more severe impairments during much of the pandemic.
It is difficult to isolate all the factors that may have caused this phenomenon, but the absence of strict blocking measures probably contributed to it.
There is also no evidence that the Swedish economy was better than that of its neighbours.
Although Sweden refrained from closing bars, restaurants and shops at the start of the pandemic, increasingly strict legal restrictions have been introduced over the past five months.
These include a ban on public gatherings of eight or more people, restrictions on the number of people in shops, sports halls and special public transport, and a ban on serving food and drink after 8pm.
A daily decline in deaths has been reported since early January, but infection rates remain high.
Article: There was no pressure on the NHS all winter
Verdict: Hospitals were very busy, especially during the winter months, but the NHS was able to cope, largely due to restructuring and access restrictions.
The pressure on beds in acute care was high, as was the need to staff them with specialists.
Some non-Covid treatments were temporarily halted and services relocated to prevent the spread of the virus, which inevitably led to a reduction in bed numbers.
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Some hospitals had lower than expected overall occupancy rates, but great efforts were made to create sufficient spare capacity to deal with the increase in coronavirus cases.
The coronavirus also has a major impact on the workforce, as large numbers of people are sick or isolate themselves.
Article: With PCR, if you do it right, you can find almost anything in any.
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is considered the most reliable method for detecting coronaviruses.
The process was invented in the 1990s, long before Covid, by a California scientist, Kari Mullis. At a public event, he once said: With the PCR, if you do it right, you can find almost anything.
This argument has since been used to discredit the Covid PCR test, but this criticism is unfounded.
Mr. Mullis referred to the high sensitivity of his test.
PCR tests can detect minute amounts of virus, so a person can test positive days or weeks after infection and no longer be infectious.
However, this is unlikely to have a major impact on the number of cases, and people usually get tested when they have symptoms.
