The Infodemic: Is the Lethality of COVID-19 Similar to Severe Influenza?

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