The Infodemic: Is the Lethality of COVID-19 Similar to Sever
Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2020 3:16 pm
Health workers in protective suits transport a dead body at a hospital in Manila, Philippines. The capital and outlying provinces returned to another lockdown after medical groups warned that the country was waging a losing battle against the coronavirus.
Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here.
Daily Debunk
Claim: “The overall lethality of [COVID-19] (IFR) is about 0.1% to 0.3% and thus in the range of a severe influenza.”
Verdict: Inaccurate
Read the full story at: Health Feedback
Social Media Disinfo
Screenshot
Circulating on social media: Claim that a contact tracing program developed by Apple and Google has been secretly inserted onto phones and tracks user’s location.
Verdict: Misleading
Read the full story at: Agence France-Presse
Factual Reads on Coronavirus
The coronavirus may shut down the immune system’s vital classrooms
In many infections, the immune system builds so-called germinal centers in the spleen or lymph nodes to train cells that make antibodies, but the structures fail to develop in some COVID-19 cases.
-- Science, August 25