Delays in reporting on weekends mean that seven-day averages can be a more useful measure 

16 Apr 2021 | Facts, News and Updates
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FACT CHECK
Covid deaths fell to single figures for the first time in seven months… but that figure needs more context

The latest coronavirus figures for the UK reported that there were seven Covid deaths on Sunday—and this was widely covered in the media.

The last time daily deaths were this low was back on 13 September, when there were five deaths reported on a single day. It is important to note that this is just the number of deaths reported on this date, not the number of people who actually died.

We consistently see drops in deaths reported over the weekend, which are usually followed by a jump on Tuesdays. Validating a Covid death and contacting the patient’s family can take much longer on weekends.

This means it is often more helpful to look at the average number of deaths across a week, rather than just on specific days.

The average number of Covid-19 deaths reported over the seven-day period ending Sunday, 11 April, was 36. While deaths have been trending downwards since the peak of the second wave in January 2021, the most recent government data shows that deaths rose by 2.4% (an increase of six deaths) across the past seven days, compared to the previous seven days.

People deserve to be given the full picture—especially when this figure is used to call for the lifting of Covid restrictions, as the Daily Mail did on Monday.
Are Covid deaths falling? ([link removed])
Friend, dangerous rumours about the pandemic are still surging

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FACT CHECK
Are 30% of children growing up in families that struggle to put food on the table? ([link removed])

Kate Green, Labour’s shadow Education Secretary, claimed during a speech that “there are 4.3 million children growing up in poverty,” and that “three in ten children are growing up in families... that were struggling to put food on the table.”

Although you may assume that poverty and food insecurity are the same thing, Ms Green has highlighted the fact that they are different. Putting enough food on the table is a real struggle for many families, but not everyone classed as living in poverty also suffers from food insecurity.

According to data from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), there are indeed 4.3 million children in relative poverty at the start of 2020. Ms Green was right to say this represents about 30.7% of UK children. But the DWP did another survey which showed that only roughly 8% of all UK households either had low or very low food security.

Of the 4.3 million children in relative poverty Kate Green mentions, three-quarters of them were classed as being ‘food secure’.
We deserve a better debate on poverty ([link removed])
We’ve discussed the problems with measuring poverty ([link removed]) before.
FACT CHECK
No, Covid-19 vaccine did not kill every animal it was tested on ([link removed])

A viral Facebook post claimed that all animals involved in Covid-19 vaccine studies died months later from immune disorders, sepsis and/or cardiac failure.

This is false. The post appears to be a screenshot of an online article which makes a number of incorrect claims.

The study this particular claim is based on was about severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and published in 2012. It did not focus on Covid-19 vaccines, or even use the same technology that underpins the vaccines currently being used against Covid-19.

And even in this study, the animals were actually euthanised—they did not die in the ways described in the post.
Did animals die in the SARS trial? ([link removed])
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* Fibres from masks and swabs aren’t 'Morgellons' ([link removed])
* Facebook post makes misleading claims about Covid-19 passports and death rate ([link removed])

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