An article circulating on social media claims without evidence that Pope Francis and two of his aides have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The Vatican has said the pope has a cold, “with no symptoms related to other pathologies.”
Posts on Facebook falsely claim to show screenshots of two tweets by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the U.S. coronavirus response. Schumer didn’t post the supposed tweet criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to bar travelers from China.
Democrats have criticized President Donald Trump for his administration’s response to the new coronavirus, making claims about cuts to public health programs and the silencing of government experts. But they haven’t always gotten their facts right.
A meme with the false claim that “[t]he US is charging over $3,000 per test” for patients who may have COVID-19 has been circulating on social media. For now, the two agencies authorized to test for the illness are not billing patients.
A doctored image on social media shows members of the KKK carrying a Trump-Pence campaign banner. The original image, which predates President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign by several years, does not.
President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of “politicizing” the new coronavirus, calling it “their new hoax.” Even after Trump explained his remarks, some Democrats — including Mike Bloomberg — continued to wrongly accuse Trump of describing the coronavirus as a “hoax.”
Viral Facebook posts use a photo of a vaccine for cows to falsely suggest that the novel coronavirus isn’t actually new, alleging it is proof of “how much the media controls people.” The cattle vaccine has nothing to do with the COVID-19 virus.
In recent interviews, former Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged that he was wrong to say he was “arrested” while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He was actually “stopped” and briefly “detained,” Biden said.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, newly crowned coronavirus point man Mike Pence spun the facts in claiming he moved decisively when confronted with a disturbing HIV outbreak in a rural Indiana county when he was governor of the state.
An ad misleads when it claims that Sen. Bernie Sanders “helped turn neighborhoods like ours into a toxic waste dumping ground.” Sanders did support a bill that could have resulted in nuclear waste being placed near a poor, minority town in Texas, but the state ultimately rejected that location.