Fact-checker debunks Covid vaccine myths

11 November 2020, 16:10

This is the moment a fact-checker debunked myths surrounding Covid vaccines while talking to LBC.

Tom Phillips, the Editor FullFact, addressed false claims on the subject after preliminary findings from Pfizer have shown that its coronavirus vaccine can prevent 90% of people contracting the virus.

Mr Phillips told LBC's Shelagh Fogarty: "Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bill Gates has been a magnet for misinformation about this because of course he does a lot of work in the field of funding vaccine research [and] funding medical research generally.

"So we've seen a lot of claims that this is part of some population control programme that he's doing [and] that the vaccine will have a microchip in it that will be used to track the population.

"It's worth saying, in case we needed to clear this one up, the vaccines won't have microchips in them.

"This is possibly a misunderstanding of a research programme that they had to create patches that you could put on the skin that would deliver vaccines in a better way. But that's not a microchip. Vaccines don't have microchips in them."

The FullFact Editor went on to debunk the claim that nasal swab tests are being used as a secret way to vaccinate people.

Pfizer has been tested on 43,500 people in the US, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey.

The pharmaceutical giant hopes to supply 50 million doses by the end of 2020 and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.

Mr Phillips also said: "There's absolute nothing wrong with having questions and it's perfectly natural [and] perfectly human to want to be well-informed before you have any medical intervention.

He added: "It has to be said, however, vaccines are very rigorously tested. Vaccines are subject to a huge amount of scrutiny, possibly more than many other medicines.

"And these trials will make their data available when they are complete, and so we will be able to scrutinise that..."