UK newspaper report on non-COVID deaths from 2020, not 2022
UK newspaper report on non-COVID deaths from 2020, not 2022
(Reuters) - Some social media users are misrepresenting a 2020 report in a British newspaper on non-COVID deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming it is from 2022, as well as falsely implying the headline concerns vaccines.
Posts show the front page of the Metro newspaper with the headline "DEATH TOLLS SOAR... NOT FROM COVID" as well as a red circle around the article’s standfirst which claims deaths from diabetes, Parkinson’s, prostate, breast and bowel cancer had risen during the pandemic (here and here).
Users heavily imply the deaths are due to COVID-19 vaccines.
However, the newspaper article is from Oct. 20, 2020 – well before Britain’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, which began in December 2020 (here).
The news report, which claimed on its front page that non-COVID home deaths “rocketed since lockdown,” was criticized after its publication for giving the impression that deaths from a range of illnesses had increased sharply because of lockdowns. The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the UK’s independent newspaper regulator, said the article only referred to the displacement of deaths from hospitals to people’s homes on continuation on page 6 of the newspaper. The IPSO issued the publication an order for a “serious breach” of Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code of Practice, which concerns accuracy, on March 10, 2021 (here and here).
VERDICT
False. The headline is from 2020 and pre-dates COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.
