Health
Flawed comparisons between test and trace systems go viral
Claims suggesting the system in England costs vastly more than those in Wales and Ireland uses incomparable figures. Read
Fact checks
Abbas Panjwani
Fact Checker (former)
Abbas joined Full Fact in 2018. Before this, he worked as a social researcher, collecting quantitative and qualitative research to help inform policy development and evaluation for government departments and other public bodies. Most recently he worked as research manager at Ofgem, Great Britain’s energy regulator, and has also worked on projects for BIS, the Home Office and the Competition and Markets Authority.
Health
More people are dying than usual at the moment
Dr John Lee claimed on talkRADIO that the number of deaths is below the long-term average, but this isn’t true. Read
Fact checks
The needles in some syringes are supposed to ‘disappear’
Some syringes have a spring which retracts the needle once the dose is administered. Read
Fact checks
Health
Putting outsourced contact tracing spend in context
Spend on contact tracing is a small part of Test and Trace. As of October, roughly the same amount had been spent on national and local authority tracing efforts. Read
Fact checks
Cambridge Covid-19 test results don’t mean PCR tests are inaccurate
A higher ratio of false positives to true positives are expected when viral prevalence in the community drops. Read
Fact checks
Health
False claims about first vaccine recipients spread on social media
Posts claim that CNN used a picture of one of the first vaccine recipients back in October. They did not. Read
Fact checks
Health
Telegraph wrong on Whitty and Vallance statements
Allison Pearson claimed Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance cherry-picked rising hospital bed occupancy figures in the coronavirus briefing last week. They didn’t. Read
Fact checks
Economy, Business & Finance
Is the UK's trade deal with Japan better than the EU's?
We don’t know how much better the UK-Japan trade deal is compared to the EU-Japan deal, but it isn’t expected to be worse. Read
Fact checks
Health
Danish study on mask efficacy only tells us half the story
A Spectator article suggests a new study which found mask-wearing didn’t lower Covid-19 infection rates is proof masks don’t work. But the study didn’t look at whether masks help others. Read
Fact checks
Health
Research suggesting increased Covid-19 risk for dog-owners may be barking up the wrong tree
The research claims dog walkers have a higher risk of catching Covid-19 but it has a number of methodological flaws. Read
Fact checks
