New South Wales Health Chief did not publish tweet on purported child deaths from COVID-19 vaccine
New South Wales Health Chief did not publish tweet on purported child deaths from COVID-19 vaccine
(Reuters) - Representatives for New South Wales Health in Australia said that posts on Instagram and Twitter attributed to Dr. Kerry Chant are fake and the information contained in them is incorrect. The response came after an account online posing as NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant tweeted the message, “Great result, from the children’s roll-out, only 3 deaths linked and 106 adverse reactions out of 377000 vaccines. I would say that is a better result than expected. Make sure you get your children’s vaccine before school starts.”
Examples of falsified tweets are visible (here) (here) and (here).
Some users (here) immediately recognized the tweet was fake, while others believed the tweet was authentic. One user responded, “OMG she is evil and wonder if her reaction would be the same if one of those children who died were hers. Prison calling for that one.” (here)
The false claim follows the January 2022 roll-out (here) of child COVID-19 vaccines in Australia.
A spokesperson for NSW Health shared a press release with Reuters, which confirmed the posts are fakes. “NSW Chief Health Officer Dr. Kerry Chant did not author the Tweet or the Instagram post attributed to her, and the information contained in both of them is incorrect,” said the representative.
The government health entity also said Chant’s Twitter account (seen archived archive.fo/QK4p2 ) “has been temporarily deactivated to prevent further edited imagery being shared to spread vaccine misinformation.”
Actual roll-out data updates on COVID-19 vaccines in Australia can be found (here).
This claim is not the first time Reuters has debunked fake tweets. Two recent examples can be seen (here), and (here).
VERDICT
Altered. Representatives from NSW Health confirm that Dr. Kerry Chant did not author tweets celebrating the nominal number deaths of children due to COVID-19 vaccines.
