The so-called ‘fact-checking’ companies go further and further in spreading misinformation about policies regarding COVID-19 vaccination. The usual tactics until now have consisted in creating strawmen and then attacking them, making dubious and unsupported claims and putting words into people‘s mouths. Today, Mr. David Williams at Australian Associated Press Factcheck went a step further. His “verdict” of a claim he is trying to debunk is astonishingly misleading. It might be noted that AAP Factcheck claims to be “committed to truth and accuracy”.
Apparently, Williams has managed to find an old Facebook post from October 24th last year claiming that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer offered to people under 65 and 50 in Norway and Denmark, respectively. The ‘fact check’ also mentions that Toby tweeted around the same time: “Denmark has banned the use of COVID-19 vaccines for people under 50 saying the benefits are too low.”
I do not have information on the Norwegian policy and have made no claims about it, but as I wrote a piece on the Danish policy for the Daily Sceptic last September – it was this piece that Toby’s tweet was promoting – and a follow-up debunking a ‘fact-check’ on that post, I know how at the time no COVID-19 vaccines were offered to the general population of Denmark under 50. This policy was still unchanged when the aforementioned Facebook post was published.
In his verdict, Mr. Williams makes the following claim: “False. The primary doses are recommended for all adults. While the countries’ booster programs are targeted at those 45 and above, younger citizens can get access.”
To support the first part of his claim, that primary doses are recommended for all Danish adults, Mr. Williams refers to information provided by the Danish Health Authorities here. But the source does not support this claim. Instead, this is what it actually says:
The Danish Health Authority recommends vaccination for certain groups:
- People aged 50 and over
- People under the age of 50 who are at increased risk of a serious illness with COVID-19
- Staff in the health and care sector as well as parts of the social sector who have close contact with patients or citizens who are at increased risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19
- Relatives of persons at particularly high risk
- Pregnant women
The above are the groups for which vaccination is recommended. It is not recommended for other groups. This means Mr. Williams‘ first claim is false.
The second part of Mr. Williams‘s claim is that while both countries target booster programs at those 45 and over, younger individuals can get the boosters. As for the first part of this statement, it is untrue for Denmark (I do not know about Norway). Booster programmes, according to the source Mr. Williams quotes, are targeted at those 50 and over, not 45 and over. This claim, therefore, is wrong as well. The third claim in Mr. Williams‘s ‘verdict’ is that “younger citizens can get access”, again referring both to Norway and Denmark. As for Denmark, this flies in the face of his own source, which he even quotes in his article, saying “The purpose of vaccination is not to prevent infection with COVID-19, and people aged under 50 are therefore currently not being offered booster vaccination.”
To be fair, it must be made clear that, while the statements about boosters not being available to most people under 50 were true at the time they were published, since November 15th the vaccines, including boosters, have been made available to this group, but only at their own expense. This is an exemption which, according to Danish friends, hardly anyone knows about. However, this does not save Mr. Williams — any reference to this more recent exemption is obviously invalid when ‘fact-checking’ a Facebook post or tweet from October 24th.
It is clear how irritating it must be to be Mr. Williams that Denmark made its decision to put strong limitations on the availability of the Covid vaccines. This is nothing new. What is new is how he ventures far beyond the usual tactics involving creating and then attacking strawmen, distorting headlines and so on. Perhaps this shows us the rising desperation among those whose day job it is to distort the facts.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist, consultant and writer based in Iceland. You can subscribe to his Substack page From Symptoms to Causes here.
Update: Apparently, in a section in the English version of one of the official Danish COVID-19 websites, a recommendation of primary vaccination for everyone under 50 is still to be found, contradicting the more detailed recommendations updated last autumn. This information is not to be found in the Danish version. We have written to the Danish Health Authority, asking for an explanation of this discrepancy.
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