The embassy relocated to Kabul airport

20 Aug 2021 | Full Fact's weekly news
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FACT CHECK
French Ambassador did not leave Kabul, contrary to Peston tweet

As the Taliban advanced towards Kabul on Sunday, the French ambassador in Afghanistan David Martinon tweeted a video of himself in a helicopter saying he was leaving the Afghan capital’s former “green zone”, which houses a number of embassies.

But journalist Robert Peston and an article in the MailOnline claimed that the ambassador had left Kabul entirely. This is false.

We asked the French embassy in the UK if Mr Martinon was still in Kabul. A spokesperson directed us towards a tweet sent by Mr Martinon on Monday, saying the embassy had just relocated to Kabul airport.

At the time this newsletter was sent, Mr Peston had not clarified or deleted his tweet.

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R numbers, infections, scenarios: how modelling reporting changed our view of the pandemic ([link removed])

“DEADLY BUG Coronavirus lockdown could last 18 MONTHS as government says 260,000 would die without drastic measures,” read one early Sun headline, published in March 2020.

“Britain's death toll 'could hit 85,000 in second Covid wave,” claimed the Telegraph months later in October.

Faced with an overwhelming amount of new information, not to mention the very real anxieties generated by a global pandemic, it’s not a surprise that scientific modelling on death tolls, infection rates and vaccination benefits all became the subject of intense scrutiny and speculation.

As the outputs of these models became public we started to see headlines that relayed them in extremely precise terms, in a similar way to the presentation of weather forecasts.

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** Conservative Woman article falsely claims vaccines don’t work ([link removed])
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An article on the Conservative Woman website reports on “five key Covid truths” sourced to a Texas-based cardiologist. It asserts “he has all the necessary scientific back-up to support his claims.” But he doesn’t.

Dr Peter McCullough, the cardiologist in question, claims the virus is not spread asymptomatically, and can only be spread by sick people. But the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies notes that asymptomatic individuals can transmit the virus, albeit to a lesser extent than people who have symptoms.

Dr McCullough’s statement also doesn’t acknowledge the role pre-symptomatic people play in transmission. That is, people who are not “sick” at the time, but are infected and do go on to develop symptoms in the future.

A meta-analysis on the topic last year estimated that between 46% and 69% of ‘symptomatic’ cases were transmitted by people who were pre-symptomatic at the time.

The other four “key Covid truths” are also false or misleading. We’ve fact checked them all.

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